VANCOUVER — A year and a half after a public inquiry called for urgent action to protect women along a stretch of highway in northern British Columbia known as the Highway of Tears, mayors and other leaders in the region say the province has yet to contact them about what needs to happen.
Internal briefing notes also indicate a team of bureaucrats assigned to hold consultations with communities along Highway 16, where women have been disappearing or turning up dead for decades, have put that work on hold for much of the past year.
What emerges is a picture of slow progress that appears to contradict the province’s claims that it has been busy holding a “tremendous number” of meetings about the issue with local governments.
A public inquiry into the Robert Pickton case also examined the phenomenon of murdered and missing women in the province’s north, in particular along the highway between Prince Rupert on the coast and Prince George, a nine-hour drive to the east.
At least 17 women, many of them aboriginal, have vanished or been murdered along Highway 16 and the adjacent Highways 97 and 5 since the 1970s. Most of the cases remain unsolved, though investigators don’t believe a single killer is responsible.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardHighway 16 near Prince George, B.C. is shown on Oct. 8, 2012. A year and a half after a public inquiry called for urgent action to protect women along a stretch of highway in northern British Columbia known as the Highway of Tears, mayors and other leaders in the region say the province has yet to contact them about what needs to happen.

Much of the discussion about the Highway of Tears has focused on a lack of affordable transportation connecting isolated communities, which has led some women to resort to hitchhiking.
First Nations leaders released a report in 2006 recommending a shuttle bus along the highway.
Public inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal produced a report in December 2012 with more than 60 recommendations. Among them, Oppal endorsed the 2006 report and urged the province to “immediately” commit to developing an improved public transit system for the Highway of Tears, in consultation with local governments.
“I don’t know who they’ve been talking to, but they haven’t been talking to the mayor of Prince Rupert,” said Mayor Jack Mussallem, whose community of 13,500 people is located 750 kilometres northwest of Vancouver.
“I’m starting to get a little concerned about whether or not we’re going to see anything. … It’s not an issue that’s going to go away, and hopefully it’s somewhere on their priority list.”
Mayors or city staff in Terrace, Smithers, Vanderhoof, Houston, Fraser Lake and Telkwa said they, too, have not been directly contacted to formally discuss the Highway of Tears issue.
The tribal chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and the chair of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako also said they had not been approached by the province.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardShawn MacMillen, centre, brother of murder victim Colleen MacMillen speaks with RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk during a news conference in Surrey, B.C., Tuesday, September 25, 2012. RCMP say they believe a deceased Oregon inmate is responsible for at least one of the murders in British Columbia's so-called Highway of Tears investigation.

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Documents obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request indicate there was some work done in early 2013.
Staff within the Transportation Ministry and assistant deputy ministers from three different ministries were assigned to the file.
They identified potential stakeholders and compiled a list of existing transportation options in the region. A status report from February 2013 indicates staff held an initial meeting with the North Central Local Government Association that month.
But by the summer, the work appears to have wound down, according to the documents.
The families of four women connected to the Pickton case filed the first in a series of lawsuits last May, prompting the province to warn that it’s work on Oppal’s recommendations would be constrained by the legal process. None of the lawsuits involved women whose deaths or disappearances were linked to the Highway of Tears.
A Transportation Ministry briefing note in July said staff had not planned any further consultations because of the lawsuits, and the ministry confirmed in a statement last week that consultations had been “put on hold so as not to compromise the legal process.”
The province settled the lawsuits in March.

Family handoutAn undated photo of Tom Chipman and his daughter Tamara Chipman, 22, who was last seen hitchhiking Sept. 21 along Highway 16 outside of Prince Rupert. She was presumably heading to her home in Terrace, which is about an hour's drive away, but hasn't been seen since.

Transportation Minister Todd Stone told the legislature in April that “there have been a tremendous number of discussions and meetings that have been held, particularly with local government officials, community organizations and other stakeholders throughout the corridor.”
When asked what meetings had actually taken place, the Transportation Ministry identified only two: the February 2013 meeting with the North Central Local Government Association and a meeting last November with the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition, a group of northern mayors and regional district chairs, to discuss “rural and northern transportation challenges.” Another meeting with the action coalition is set for May, the ministry said.
The ministry also noted BC Transit has been talking to northern communities about the possibility of expanding bus service.
Justice Minister Suzanne Anton declined an interview request. Instead, she issued a written statement repeating her previous comments that the issue is complex and that the government is committed to protecting vulnerable women.

I think their lack of initiative just to look into the feasibility of this shows that it’s not a priority for them

A report released by the Justice Ministry last fall said staff had identified potential transportation options for the Highway of Tears and expected to begin consultations soon, though it provided no details.
Anton has insisted the highway is safer than it was 15 years ago and she noted there are several transportation options already in place, including local public transit, Greyhound bus service, rail service and a regional health bus that transports patients from rural communities to medical appointments.
Maurine Karagianis, the Opposition NDP critic for women’s issues, said the Liberal government has done nothing new to improve safety along Highway 16 since the public inquiry report. She also pointed out Greyhound dramatically cut its service last year, which means the situation is actually worse.
“It’s a mystery to me why the government hasn’t made more progress on this,” said Karagianis.
“All of the comments the minister (Anton) has made show how incredibly out of touch she and the government are.”
Terry Teegee, the tribal chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, said he’s disappointed, but not surprised, by the lack of progress on the issue.
“I think their lack of initiative just to look into the feasibility of this shows that it’s not a priority for them,” said Teegee, whose niece, Ramona Wilson, vanished in June 1994 and was found dead 10 months later.
Teegee disputed the government’s claim that the highway is safe.
“There are still women going missing,” he said.
“This (proposed) shuttle service and other things that we are doing are to try to prevent this from happening.”

Glenn Baglo / PNGWhen a pickup truck is as comfortable and luxurious as some family sedans, will anyone really use it for its true purpose? That was a question I asked while driving around in the 2013 Nissan Titan, my ride being the fully loaded SL Crew Cab 4X4.
After a test of its capabilities, it is obvious that the Titan, with its four-wheel drive and versatility, can play the part just fine. And while I felt terrible getting the shiny Gun Metal paint (a $135 extra) filthy, I couldn’t resist putting that four-wheel drive system to the test.
The Titan is offered in either King Cab or Crew Cab format, with the former starting at $33,898, and a destination charge of $1,730 added on. My test ride was also fitted with the $2,000 rear-seat DVD entertainment system, pushing the price to $53,898. With leather seating, plenty of creature comforts and the TV screen to keep the children occupied in the back, it’s sometimes easy to forget you are riding around in a pickup.
There’s no denying the Titan is a large truck, a presence that is quite evident from the tall front grille, which is a Nissan signature look for its trucks. The excess chrome up the middle also makes the Titan’s front end hard to miss. The high passenger cab is made accessible thanks to a chrome step. But even with that, entering the cabin will be a challenge for those individuals who are less vertically gifted.
The designers found a way to use what would otherwise be wasted space on the lower panel behind the rear wheel on the driver’s side. The lockable storage space isn’t large, but it could hold some tools for the contractors who use the Titan.
On the inside, the Titan’s occupants are coddled in luxury in the SL Crew Cab 4X4. From the leather seating, navigation system and nice sound system, the Titan has many of the bells and whistles most people desire. And in the case of the tester, it was equipped with a Rockford Fosgate audio system, whose screen does stick out a little high on the centre stack.
For the rest of the controls, they are neatly packaged and easy to operate, including a dial off to the left of the panel for the Titan’s four-wheel drive setup.
In the back seats, passengers get plenty of leg room — when you aren’t trying to squeeze in around all those tools. And if you need extra room for the tools, the seat cushions fold up for increased cargo capacity. The cargo bay of the standard bed comes with the factory applied spray-on bedliner, which protects the metal from scratches and dings.
Providing the brute force for the Titan is a 5.6-litre DOHC V8. It produces 317 horsepower and, more importantly, 385 foot-pounds of torque. That torque comes in handy because the Titan can tow up to 9,200 pounds, something I got to test at Nissan 360, a global event held in California in August that showcased the company’s products from around the world. The Titan’s transmission sounds a bit antiquated when you hear that it is a five-speed automatic, but the setup works quite effectively. It is equipped with a tow/haul mode to help with moving that extra cargo.
With the four-wheel-drive system, the Titan also has off-road capabilities, enhanced by Rancho off-road shocks and underbody skid plates. Controlled via the dial on the centre stack, selecting the right setting for your situation is easy.
I put it to the test in some rough off-road conditions in some undeveloped land in the West Island and the Titan performed as expected, handling deep ruts and mud with aplomb.
Fuel economy for the Titan comes in at 17.8 litres per 100 kilometres in the city and 12.2 L/100 km at highway speeds.
For a pickup truck, the Titan drives quite well. Acceleration is good and the steering feel is nice.
And of vital importance for any vehicle this size is visibility, and the Titan has all the angles covered with the large side mirrors, which feature a lower convex mirror that clearly shows the driver where his wheels are at any given time. That feature came in rather handy in some tight spots — including a local drive-through to satisfy a late-night craving. Also helping with vision is the rear-view camera, which is essential because it is near impossible to see what is behind the Titan without it.
The Titan can live a double life as a workhorse during the week that isn’t afraid to get down and dirty to a family vehicle on the weekend — after a visit to the car wash, of course.
<strong>The Specs</strong>
<strong>Type of vehicle</strong> Full-sized pickup truck
<strong>Engine</strong> 5.6-litre DOHC V8
<strong>Power</strong> 317 hp at 5,200 rpm; 385 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,400
<strong>Transmission</strong> Five-speed automatic
<strong>Brakes</strong> Ventilated disc brakes with ABS
<strong>Tires</strong> P275/60R20
<strong>Price: base/as tested</strong> $33,898/$53,898
<strong>Destination charge</strong> $1,730
<strong>Natural Resources Canada fuel economy L/100 km</strong> 17.8 city, 11.2 highway
<strong>Standard features</strong> Automatic on/off headlights, 20-inch chrome-clad alloy wheels, automatic on/off headlights, fog lights, chrome step rails, NissanConnect with Navigation, Rockford Fosgate audio system, Dual-zone Automatic Temperature Control, 4-way power front-passenger seat, leather seating surfaces, heated front seats, memory system (driver's seat, outside mirrors and pedals) and wood accents.
<strong>Options</strong> Rear-seat DVD entertainment system ($2,000)

Former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal was criticized last year after he took a bit part in a violent feature film being made in Vancouver. He played the role of a stockbroker who is shot to death by an unhappy customer: A serial killer, angry at losing his life savings to rapacious money managers.

At the same time the film was being made, Mr. Oppal led a high-profile commission of inquiry, called to examine how police failed to apprehend serial killer Robert (Willie) Pickton. The Port Coquitlam pig farmer murdered and cut to pieces at least six — possibly dozens more — local women before he was arrested in 2002. Commissioner Oppal’s decision to step away from his inquiry room and play a murder victim seemed remarkably insensitive and in poor taste. Relatives of B.C.’s missing and murdered women were justifiably appalled at his lapse in judgment.

Mr. Oppal defended his foray into acting, telling the Vancouver Province that he was “entitled to have a life.” But questions lingered. What had drawn him to the project, written and directed by notorious schlockmeister Uwe Boll, also known as the world’s worst film maker? Had Mr. Oppal found some redeeming qualities in the plot? And what of his performance? Would he land on the cutting room floor?

The long-simmering debate over a two-syllable noun that dictionaries define as offensive appears near full boil.<strong>From The Huffington Post</strong>
WASHINGTON — The Oneida Indian Nation’s campaign against the Washington pro football club’s team name picked up new supporters this week when more than two dozen clergy in the Washington region committed to taking the fight to their pulpits.
“Black clergy have been the conscience of America,” Oneida Nation representative Ray Halbritter said to a gathering of roughly 40 people on folding chairs in the basement of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ. “This is not a fight we could do by ourselves, or should do by ourselves.”
The Rev. Graylan Hagler, senior minister at Plymouth, asked for a show of hands Wednesday (Oct. 23) to indicate which clergy members in attendance would be willing to preach against what he termed the “R word.” More than a dozen raised their hands. Hagler said that a different dozen committed to the cause at a clergy breakfast meeting Wednesday and that, all told, he has commitments from roughly 100 clergy members to talk to their congregations in coming weeks.
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/27/redskins-name-change_n_4164291.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&quot; target="_blank">Read complete story</a>
<div><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/27/redskins-name-change_n_4164291.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&quot; target="_blank"> </a></div>

Finally, some answers. Assault on Wall Street was recently released, to no acclaim whatsoever. It played briefly in a single Los Angeles theatre and received a handful of reviews, all of them disparaging. “Shamelessly subpar,” declared TheLos Angeles Times. “‘Assault’ plays like visually bland vigilante porn,” sneered Variety. Then the movie was dumped on the on-demand market, where it has languished.

Is Assault on Wall Street that bad? Given the context in which it was made, it’s probably worse than the critics described. The movie is set in New York, and while many of its outdoor scenes were shot there, all of the murders — I stopped counting at 15 — were filmed in Vancouver, mostly in locations downtown. Other scenes were shot in the notorious Downtown Eastside, where Pickton preyed for years.

ASSAULT ON WALL STREETA screen capture from Wally Oppal's cameo in "Assault on Wall Street" (2013). A broker is shot as Wally Oppal cowers on the left (white shirt, tie).

HandoutDominic Purcell.

The stupefying gore fest features some vaguely familiar faces, B-movie veterans and troubled has-beens such as John Heard, Edward Furlong and Eric Roberts, brother of Julia. The star is Dominic Purcell, whom some will remember from a TV series called Prison Break. He plays a monosyllabic armoured truck guard whose life savings are sucked dry in a Bernie Madoff style scam, just as his brain-tumour-suffering wife is undergoing expensive medical treatment.

Apparently guilt struck, the wife slices open her wrists and dies in the matrimonial bed. The Purcell character goes ballistic, taking his revenge on “Wall Street” and the people who work there. I’m not sure what was more unsettling: Watching the blood and brain matter fly, or noticing that the longest, most gruesome scenes of carnage were shot outside the National Post‘s Vancouver bureau, and inside the office building next door.

Alberta man in Saskatoon dies in crash after driving on wrong side of road<strong>By Betty Ann Adam</strong>
SASKATOON — An RCMP cruiser dispatched to stop a car going the wrong way on a divided highway near Warman, Sask., was unable to catch it before it crashed in the north end of Saskatoon, killing the lone occupant.
The name of the 59-year-old man from Stony Plain, Alta., has not been released as authorities seek to notify next of kin.
The single-vehicle mishap occurred around 8:40 a.m. local time Friday.<!--more-->
A collision analyst from the Saskatoon Police Service was on the scene for several hours.
Warman RCMP received three calls, the first of which reported the car near the town of Warman’s north access road.
A second call came from the town’s south access road and the third was “about 10 minutes north of Saskatoon,” said Sgt. Warren Gherasim.
“There was a police vehicle dispatched, but by the time he caught up he actually encountered the collision shortly after it happened. It was some distance behind the subject,” Gherasim said.
The two-door car had struck a guardrail on the east side of the northbound lane of the twinned highway.
“Somebody had seen the vehicle at the Warman north access so it probably was on the highway even north of Warman yet, in the wrong lane,” Gherasim said.
The distance from the Warman north access to the border of Saskatoon is about 15 kilometres.
“In that 15-kilometre stretch there are numerous locations, just virtually at every crossing or intersection with the highway, there are wrong way signs posted on both sides of the highway to give people an indication,” Gherasim said.
<em>Postmedia News</em>

That’s where Mr. Oppal’s character finally meets his demise. His cameo comes in the film’s 86th minute and lasts about two seconds. At this point in the story, the killer has already disposed of a New York assistant district attorney and a handful of brokers. Now he’s in a brokerage office, wearing a suit and tie and a large white mask, blasting away at hapless worker bees with a pair of handguns.

He approaches Mr. Oppal and shoots at him, point blank. Once, twice. Mr. Oppal makes a face. He grunts. Blood appears on his chest. He falls to the floor. It’s over in the blink of an eye: Bang, bang, he’s dead. As shooting victims go, Mr. Oppal is satisfactory.

The rampage continues, with the Purcell character pulling the pins on a pair of hand grenades and blowing up more people. Then he goes after the brokerage’s despicable boss. After a ludicrous plot twist, the killer walks away a free man. Credits roll: Mr. Oppal received a rather generous billing as “Broker.” Most of the other murder victims got nothing.

ASSAULT ON WALL STREETA screen capture shows Wally Oppal after he is shot by a serial killer Assault on Wall Street (2013) directed by Uwe Boll.

Mr. Oppal walked away from the film set and returned to his inquiry room. Hearings concluded in June 2012, and Mr. Oppal delivered his Missing Women Commission of Inquiry report in November. Among his recommendations: That the B.C. government “establish a compensation fund for the children of the missing and murdered women” and “a healing fund for the families of the missing and murdered women.”

To date, no such funds have been established. But according to the province’s latest Public Accounts, Mr. Oppal claimed $405,000 for his work as commissioner in the last fiscal year, bringing his total commission pay package to $840,000, spread over 26 months.

It’s unlikely that he profited at all from his role in Assault on Wall Street.

Re: The Benefits Of Amnesia, George Jonas; Preventing Mass Shootings Begins At Home, Matt Gurney, both Dec. 19.
It is the 21st century. We no longer use the words “crippled” or “retarded.” It is time to remove “lunatic” and “mad person” from the lexicon when referring to those of us with mental illness. Nor do we want to encourage people to snitch on the mentally ill, as snitches are people we associate with criminals. If we employ that language, then we unconsciously criminalize the mentally ill and follow through with criminal protocols instead of providing health care. We must come to accept that the moment the police are called, the moment we need to turn to the justice system to help someone with a mental illness, our health-care system has failed us.
Yes, we need to make it easier for families to participate in the care of those with severe, frightening mental illnesses. We need to change the laws so that family are included in consultations regarding family members over the age of majority.
In Canada, there are more than 350,000 people with schizophrenia and as many with bipolar disorder. Considering the numbers, very few with mental illness are a menace to society. And the ones who we hear about tend to be our young people from 18-24. These are our children, too. We have failed them. Diane Weber Bederman, Caledon, Ont.

Re: Mental Illness Is Hard To Treat, letter to the editor, Dec. 18.
Dr. Susan Piccinin has zeroed in on a huge problem that Ontario has in treating mental illness, namely the idea that you can’t force treatment on someone who does not want help.
Mental health regulations in Ontario are a joke. When patients are in psychosis, they are not thinking straight. They do not realize that they are sick. That is the very nature of the illness.
My loved one was discharged from a Toronto hospital one February night into subzero freezing weather, with no money, no belongings and no family or friends in the city. It is criminal to “treat and release” — sadly, that happens every day in Toronto.
That happens because Ontario law says they can’t be treated unless they are considered “dangerous to themselves or others.” But this is something that even trained psychiatrists cannot predict with any accuracy or consistency. It is not an exact science.
The reality is that people in acute psychosis, delusional and hallucinating, are always in danger. They cannot cope with reality. Some die alone on the street. Many others live in horrid conditions, because idiotic laws insist that they must not be treated against their will.
Until we recognize that we have to treat people with mental illness rather than hide behind so-called legal excuses, I will not consider Canada to be a civilized country. Marilyn Baker, Richmond, B.C.

Oppal’s report right on the mark

Re: Pickton Report Misses Mark, Brian Hutchinson, Dec. 18.
In his review of Wally Oppal’s report on the failure of police to investigate Vancouver’s missing and murdered women it is reporter Brian Hutchinson who “misses the mark,” not Commissioner Wally Oppal. The report draws a direct line from Canada’s legacy of colonialism and its policies of assimilation that have resulted in the over-representation of aboriginal peoples at the bottom of our social scale, where, dismissed by mainstream society including the police, they have been easy pickings for psychopaths like Pickton.
Mr. Oppal notes the fragmentation of police services in the Lower Mainland has exacerbated police attitudes of indifference and ineffectiveness; like others before him he calls for a regional police force. However, this recommendation is buried in paragraph 20 of Mr. Hutchinson’s article, appearing long after he’s slammed the Commissioner for his failure to call specific individual witnesses.
The purpose of the inquiry was to make recommendations to prevent such a tragedy from recurring, not point blame at individuals. Mr. Oppal’s focus on systemic bias and stereotyping (ie. entrenched police racism and sexism) gets precisely at the issues at hand. The public owes him our gratitude for a powerful and compassionate report whose recommendations demand immediate action on the part of the provincial government. Alexandra Phillips, Vancouver.

Don’t give killers media coverage

Re: Sabotaged Computer Yields No Data, Dec. 19.
The mass killing of six- and seven-year-old children in Newtown, Conn., has left us all as mourners.
U.S. President Barack Obama has promised action, and the first step he can take is to prohibit the publishing of the name and the photograph of mass shooters in all the media. Other sick minds are watching and reading the news items, fantasizing how they could be in the headlines. Copy cat crimes follow.
And it is interesting that the vast majority of the killers are males and very few females. Could it be the motherly instinct? After all, it is women who give life. Rabbi David Spiro, Toronto.

More guns equal less crime …

Re: More Guns Equal More Deaths, letter to the editor, Dec. 18.
Letter-writer Emile Therien quoted some New England Journal of Medicine research that used flawed methodology. If a person in the study had used a gun to stop a crime without killing the criminal (for instance, by brandishing, or merely wounding the criminal), then that was ignored. Therefore the benefit of gun ownership was significantly under-reported.
Mr. Therien claims that people who carry a weapon cause more violence — is he including criminals who carry weapons? But the opposite is true for good law-abiding individuals. In 1996, Texas started issuing concealed handgun licences to residents who passed the background check and training. A year later, Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, said: “I lobbied against the law in 1993 and 1995 because I thought it would lead to wholesale armed conflict. That hasn’t happened. All the horror stories I thought would come to pass didn’t happen … I’m a convert.” The National Center for Policy Analysis found that Texas permit-holders are 5.7 times less likely than the average person to be arrested for a violent offence. It seems that a good person with a weapon is still a good person. Tricia Simmons, Toronto.

… or maybe not

Emile Therien’s excellent letter quotes the New England Journal of Medicine as finding that “guns kept in the home were 22% more likely to kill a family member or an acquaintance than they were to kill an intruder.” It should be noted that a 1986 study by Kellermann/Reay put that number at 43%. If you discount for suicides, then the ratio drops to more like 22%.
Either way — madness Barry Eagles, Orleans, Ont.

Teachers deserve more respect

Re: A Toast To Teachers Every­where, Christie Blatchford, Dec. 18.
A well-written and timely column indeed, considering all the attention teachers have been getting lately, both at home and south of border.
My mother recently retired after an exemplary career; in which she had a positive impact on numerous youngsters. Growing up, I was fortunate to have many good teachers and now my kids are being taught by teachers committed to their jobs.
So, here’s a thanks to my mother, and to all the hard-working teachers out there — plus a silent tribute to the fallen heroes of Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Kalyani Mahesh, Mississauga, Ont.

Ms. Blatchford pointed out the dedication, care and compassion that teachers provide and display each and every day with their students. It is unfortunate that a large segment of the general population is so anti-teacher, due to what they perceive as the “easy life of a teacher” because of remuneration, holidays and other collective agreement benefits.
Much of this disdain is simply because everyone went to school, thus everyone is an “expert” on not only what a teacher does but also a constant critic of education. Allen Manly, former head of guidance, Thornhill, Ont.

Right-to-work may be coming

Re: Tory MP’s Bill To Force Unions Into Disclosing How Dues Spent, Dec. 13.
With Michigan turning into the 24th state to support the right-to-work, Windsor auto workers are going to be put in a very sharp disadvantage. The symbolism is not lost that Michigan, under Mitt Romney’s father, was considered the cradle of modern North American unionism.
In Ottawa, bill C-377 would require unions to open their books for donations exceeding $100,000. This will make it hard to unions to sponsors protests like the ones staged recently by Ontario teachers against bill 115. With Tory leader Tim Hudak lalready stating his intention to make Ontario a right-to-work province, educational unions should note that their Garden-of-Eden style paradise is about to end. Steve Norris, Buffalo, N.Y.

Don’t limit MPs’ questions

Re: MPs’ Questions Cost Taxpayers $1.2M To Answer, Dec. 18.
I was saddened to read that Tory backbencher Brian Jean suggested that opposition MPs should be limited in the number of written questions they can put to the government, due to costs incurred. Mr. Jean should know that it is the unfettered right of Parliament, without distinction of party, to hold the government accountable on behalf of the Canadian people.
Perhaps Mr. Jean should consider using the savings achieved by the government in underfunding the Access to Information process to subsidize the Parliamentary questions. The Access to Information Commissioner said in her latest report that “my focus for 2012–2013 will remain on achieving my strategic goals of reversing the declining trend in timeliness and disclosure of government information.”
Parliament costs the Canadian taxpayer something in the order of $700-million every year, plus the cost of Access to Information, the Office of the Auditor General and the other ways we hold government accountable. Money well spent.
Mr. Jean should understand that every question put to government by a democratic parliament is an important question, and that the government has an obligation to answer them well and in a timely fashion. John G. Williams, former MP, former chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Morinville, Alta.

Ontario owes Ontario a fair deal

Re: Ottawa Owes Ontario A Fair Deal, Allan O’Dette, Dec. 17.
Allan O’Dette should be writing letters on how to improve Ontario’s economy instead of motivating the public to ask for more handouts. He notes that we are $300-billion in debt, but puts out his welfare hand rather than condemning Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal governments policies. Look at Greece and Quebec? Does Mr. O’Dette believe taking welfare improves economies? Only we can fix the economy, or in other words, “Ontario owes Ontario a fair deal.” Doug Wilson, Burlington, Ont.

Real Catholics

Re: Stay Away From New Church, Bishop Warns, Dec. 14.
With all due respect, “conservative” Bishop Fred Henry’s letter targeting the Society of St. Pius X (“Catholic traditionalists who broke from the mainstream during the church reforms of the late ’60s”) appears to be throwing anything up against the wall hoping something will stick.
“Several excommunications”? He should know by now those “excommunications” were lifted several years ago at the beginning of a series of meetings between the Society and the Vatican. “Harbouring sedevacantists and other extremists”? To the contrary, the society has strenuously and repeatedly condemned sedevantism, but cannot control what other “extremists” may attend its many Masses at various centres around the world.
For the record, the society never “broke away from the mainstream” (the society was not even formed until the early ’70s, and then so legitimately under Canon Law). If anything it was the mainstream that left them. Today’s “mainstream” being for the most part a collection of casual church-goers who pick and chose which Catholic teachings to observe. Indeed the fact there is a traditional Catholic Mass at all in this 21st century, whether or not approved by the diocese, is due solely to the efforts of the society to preserve this timeless treasure. Phil Cortens, Carstairs, Alta.

Divine music

Re: The Secret History Of Indian Classical Music, Geoffrey Clarfield, Dec. 18.
My thanks to Geoffrey Clarfield for this column on Indian classical music. This music has its origin in divine tradition, and to any Indian musician, his/her trade is a serious matter, part of their faith and prayer.
Indian mythology says that the divine sage Narada introduced the art of music to the Earth from Heaven, and the first ever sound the universe heard was Nadbrahma or OM mantra. Due to this heavenly connection, Indian musical gurus are revered and respected. Pandit Ravi Shankar played sitar with so much of devotion it captured the attention of the music connoisseurs around the world. He put life into the metal strings, to sing the songs of his heart. Akbar Hussain, Toronto.

The Big O’s fatal flaw

Re: Concrete Culture, Jonathan Kay, Dec. 18.
I always smile when reading about the ever-ongoing controversies about the Montreal Olympic Stadium. The late Fazlur Khan delivered a lecture at Carleton University in the early 1970s, after which he was asked a question about the Montreal Olympic stadium, then under construction. Mr. Khan — one of the world’s pre-eminent structural engineers, whose projects included the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Centre in Chicago — responded that he doubted if it could ever be roofed over. He believed that good architecture had to be good engineering, a lesson that is always being relearned.
Ian Ellingham (Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada), St. Catharines, Ont.

Mark Carney’s bad judgment

Re: Bank Clears Carney, But Critics Assail Stay At MP’s, Dec. 18.
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s lengthy stay at the home of Liberal finance critic Scott Brison raises lots of red flags. Mr. Carney’s position must be non-partisan, by its very nature. And having the counsel for the Bank of Canada — one of Mr. Carney’s employees — say this did not break any rules just does not cut it.
Mr. Carney should have realized that such a move, done during the time he was deciding whether to take a run at the Liberal leadership, would come back to haunt him. He should have admitted his mistake, before it surfaced in the media. His otherwise stellar reputation is now tarnished. He will become fodder for the British media, which already seems to have their knives sharpened. Larry Comeau, Ottawa.

It seems neither Mark Carney nor Scott Brison see anything wrong with the Governor of the Bank of Canada accepting hospitality from the finance critic of a federal political party. Mr. Brison’s bad judgment in this matter doesn’t surprise me, but I expected more from Mr. Carney. I’m wondering if the Bank of England did, too. Lyman MacInnis, Toronto.

Christmastime in OttawaTheGlobe and Mail‘s Jeffrey Simpson deplores the Conservative government’s failure to mark the 50th anniversary of Canada’s revered medicare system, which according to Simpson “produces middling results at a high cost,” is “encrusted by ideology” and is “struggling, with limited success thus far, to reshape itself into something whose outcomes are commensurate with costs.” Surely this situation cried out for a commemorative postage stamp.

Paul Wells, writing on his Maclean’s blog, considers why Prime Minister Stephen Harper kept his powder dry on the aggressive Liberal wooing of outgoing Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney: it would be difficult to defenestrate him; it wouldn’t be worth the hassle, since he’s leaving anyway; and perhaps there is a tacit acknowledgment that “attempting to politicize non-partisans is what partisans do.” “I don’t know whether Carney had only one set of gentleman callers,” Wells concludes. “And now, because the PMO is staying mum, neither will you.”

“Perhaps the most important aspect of the Carney seduction … is that it failed,” Postmedia’s Michael Den Tandt suggests — because if he had accepted, it would have been so easy for the Liberals to fall in line behind yet another magic candidate. (“’Like Ignatieff, but happier!’ we can imagine them enthusing.”) Instead, in Den Tandt’s view, there are more actual ideas being espoused by Liberal candidates right now than at any point in recent memory. Which is exactly what they needed.

The ‘full conversation’ on Vancouver’s murdered womenStevie Cameron, writing in the Globe, comes to the defence of Wally Oppal’s widely assailed report into Vancouver’s missing and murdered women. It is not a “whitewash,” she argues. Rather it bluntly blames police, “list[ing] their failures in detail.” And while some are criticizing Oppal’s dozens of recommendations as “unrealistic and too expensive,” Cameron argues that’s “just what people have always said when it comes to repairing the lives of the poor and addicted living in the Downtown Eastside.” Cost doesn’t make the solutions inadvisable.

Postmedia’s Christie Blatchfordargues that Oppal clearly “meant well,” “offer[ing] the conventional Canadian solution mix of mea culpa … , prescriptions for healing … and sweeping institutional change that would, if implemented, cost the moon.” But the disproportionate number of aboriginal victims points to a much larger narrative, in her view, which is “a culture that is pathologically ill”: “alcoholism and drug addiction; fetal alcohol spectrum disorder repeating itself as a generational issue; physical and sexual abuse in the family; involvement of the child-welfare system; the prevalence of mental illness, such as schizophrenia; families rent by shocking violence, such as suicide and murder.” There is “little appetite,” she says, for the “full conversation.” We agree, and it’s unfortunate. In the meantime, we would suggest that police forces investigate cases of missing women even if they happen to be sex-trade workers and/or aboriginal. We don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Talking of which, the Star‘s Tim Harper previews the various fronts on which he thinks First Nations relations could become a serious issue for the Conservatives in the New Year.

Duly notedShould teachers of children the age of those slaughtered in Connecticut be discussing the matter with their students? The Star‘s David Rider, who decided against telling his six-year-old son about the shooting, thinks no. “We made a parenting decision and your board overruled us,” he complained to Toronto District School Board director of education Chris Spence. We don’t know what to think, really. We see no reason for teachers to bring it up proactively — such as by wearing black armbands at all times, as they are in Ontario. To what end? They already do lockdown drills. But if kids want to talk about it, or are talking about it anyway, we also see no reason, and no practical way, for teachers to avoid it. Surely it’s better to emphasize that their school is a perfectly safe place than to allow misinformation to spread.

Barbara Kay, writing in the National Post, argues that a proposed parliamentary condemnation of sex-selective abortion should constitute a reasonable “compromise” between the majority opinion that abortion should be widely available (though of course not everyone agrees on 100% abortion-on-demand) and the majority opinion that terminating a fetus because of its gender is ghastly. “We would not be making sex-selective abortion illegal, but we would let people know that they are doing something destructive and shameful,” says Kay. She makes a perfectly fine case for the concept, but Mark Warawa’s proposed motion “condemn[s] discrimination against female pregnancy termination” only (our emphasis). We think that’s (a) weird and (b) smacks of trying to back feminists not very deftly into a rhetorical corner.

It might seem odd to describe a drug-addicted prostitute as a hero. But that’s what Witness 97 is.

At 11:45pm on the night of March 22, 1997, Witness 97 — or “Anderson,” as was known at trial — was hitchhiking at the corner of Cordova St and Princess Ave in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, when Robert Pickton picked her up in his truck. He offered Anderson $100 for oral sex, and took her back to his pig farm in Port Coquitlam.

Once they were inside a trailer on his property, Pickton put a handcuff on the prostitute’s left wrist. Anderson later testified that she’d already had a bad feeling about the farm — “I just know there’s [dead] broads on that property,” she remembers saying to herself. When she saw the metal on her wrist, “I went ballistic.” She knew that what happened in the next few seconds would determine if she lived or died.

Somehow, Anderson got hold of a knife she’d spotted in the trailer, and slashed at Pickton’s neck. A confused, stumbling, bloody melée followed. At one point, Pickton had Anderson in a headlock, then got the knife out of her hands and began stabbing. But he was exhausted from the fight, and his arm went limp. Anderson took the knife back from him somehow, and then ran away. Soon, she was telling her story to the police.

The Crown prosecuted Pickton for Anderson’s attempted murder — but stayed proceedings when they became convinced that the heroin-addicted woman was an unreliable witness. Pickton remained a free man for five more years, during which time as many as two dozen more women were killed by his hand. (Pickton is serving a life sentence for the murder of six women — but he claims to have killed 49.)

What a pity that Anderson did not have the strength to finish Pickton off when she had the chance. Then again, the mere fact that she’s still alive shows us she’s a stronger person, in some ways at least, than most of us.

The image of Anderson, half-cuffed, fighting off Pickton in that grubby trailer sticks in my mind after reading from Wally Oppal’s recently released report on the murder and disappearance of sex-trade workers from the Downtown Eastside. The fight serves as a metaphor for a group of drug-addicted prostitutes who’d hit rock bottom — yet still managed, in many cases, to wage brave and stubborn fights to rescue themselves.

The words “drug addict” bring to mind a sort of unfeeling zombie. It repels sympathy. In the case of the Downtown Eastside, one imagines an undifferentiated army of these specimens, mechanically submitting to male cruelties in order to gain a fix, like rodents banging on a feeder bar. But the profiles contained in Volume I, Part 3 of Oppal’s report show this stereotype to be untrue.

Many of the women were regulars at Vancouver’s WISH Drop-In Centre, which offers sex trade workers referrals for detox. Others participated in methadone clinics. Marnie Frey, the animal-loving daughter of a Campbell River fisherman, had tried several times to get through heroin rehab programs — before disappearing into Pikcton’s farm sometime in 1997. Tanya Holyk, another Pickton victim, left behind a “letter to my addict” she’d written during a rehab stint: “For the past few years you have f’d up and ran my life. I am not going to let you do that anymore …” Angela Jardine, a woman who was believed to have the intellectual development of an 11-year-old, was last seen, well-dressed and upbeat, attending a community event called “Out of Harm’s Way.”

Several of the aboriginal women profiled did their best to connect with their roots — including Georgina Papin of the Enoch Tree Nation, who had trained herself in traditional Cree dancing and beading. They had forged something of a civic society within their trade, and some had check-in procedures with one another — which is how their disappearance often was noted. Some managed to sustain semi-functional relationships, and even hung onto old-fashioned dreams of love and romance. Of Marlene Abigosis, the eighth child of 14 born to a Pine Creek Reserve family, her sister wrote: “She fell in love once. I met him, and he was a handsome Norwegian who came to Vancouver in a Norwegian ship. She would wait for his ship to come in so she could see him.”

A good number of the bios make it clear that the girls were marked for misery from birth: They grew up in households full of alcohol, abuse, transient sex partners, and a legacy of residential schooling. Many girls shuttled around from parents to step-parents, depending on who was in prison or on the bottle — and wound up in state care or with foster parents. Some women, such as Wendy Crawford, also had schizophrenia. Kellie Little (born Richard Little) had only one kidney, and a serious jaw deformity. Yet some of the women seemed to have had relatively happy childhoods. Heather Bottomley played shortstop and catcher on a baseball team. Tiffany Drew was a championship athlete in Port Alberni. Marnie Frey, the fisherman’s daughter, loved to hunt and go camping.

But even in these latter cases, the narratives always change in the teenage years — usually just after early adolescence. The girls rebel, get into drugs, and wind up with nasty, violent boyfriend-pimps, as well as early pregnancies. They take a variety of routes to the Downtown Eastside. But once they get there, they become surrounded with other people who’ve made similarly bad choices, and they can’t escape. In most cases, it is the events that take place in the crucial years between the ages of about 12 and 16 that set them on their deadly trajectories.

These back-stories are the fuel feeding the slow-burning, never-ending tire-fire of misery in Downtown Eastside. The laws of sex and drugs, no matter how progressively drafted and enforced, can never fully bring these people into safe, mainstream society — because their severely damaged psychology systematically drives them to enablers and clients who are exploitative and sadistic.

It’s easy to imagine that, placed in their shoes, we would somehow have the strength to drop the needle, dump the boyfriend, get on the wagon, go back to school. But that’s wrong. These are women who typically suffered devastating psychological blows in their teen years — including personal violence and close experiences with death. A majority no doubt suffered conditions that would be described clinically as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sereena Abotsway, born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, was assaulted so violently that she had to have a steel plate put in her head. As a young child, Dawn Crey of the Sto:lo First Nation witnessed her father die of a heart attack — an event that set her mother to heavy drinking. Janet Henry of the ‘Namgis First Nation had a sister who was raped and murdered at the age of 19 — and, amazingly, she herself was drugged and abducted by Clifford Olson even before disappearing for good in 1997. Tanya Holyk had two uncles who committed suicide while they were still teenagers — and an aunt who herself disappeared from the Downtown Eastside. Mona Williams was placed in emergency foster care after being sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. For many of these women, getting killed by Robert Pickton would have been just the final violent event in lives already full of violent horrors that the rest of us will never have to endure.

The Oppal report contains dozens of recommendations for improving police procedures, and making amends for the oversights that led to the monster Robert Pickton being permitted five more years of slaughter. But before anyone opines on his policy prescriptions, it’s important to pay homage to the damaged souls that Pickton extinguished.

Whatever degraded status they had fallen into during their adult years, they were human beings who deserve to be remembered as more than mere “prostitutes” and “drug addicts.” If you read just one section from Mr. Oppal’s report, let it be the one in which he relates their stories, however brief — even if every one has a tragic ending.

Notes on a tragedyAs Friday’s atrocity drifts into the past, the arguments seem to be becoming even more convoluted.

Postmedia’s Christie Blatchford pays tribute to the brave teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., and to all the other teachers who, she argues, have it much tougher today than their forbears. “The modern elementary schoolteacher is part psychologist, part child-care worker, part Big Sister, part cop and frankly, all too often, all parent” — and profoundly underappreciated, in her view.

We agree with the Toronto Star‘s Heather Mallick that Ontario teachers’ plan to wear black armbands in memory of the Newtown victims is a bit odd. What is the point of inserting a constant reminder of tragedy into classrooms, gymnasia and cafeterias? It’s not as if we need to “raise awareness,” unfortunately, of child massacres; there’s not much students or teachers can do about them; and everyone else seems to be grieving perfectly well without accessorizing. We also agree it’s especially odd for Ontario teachers to wear the armbands when they’re in the midst of labour action that includes “withdrawing their care of Ontario students” — not just because it risks provoking a political backlash, as Mallick histrionically fears (the Tories are coming! The Tories are coming!), but because it makes the symbolism all the more convoluted. (“Ontario teachers might well have publicly mourned the day the Conservatives killed the national gun registry,” Mallick concedes, just to prove she’s still her.)

“Consolation will only come in comprehending that evil is real, and that it must be named in order to be constrained,” Rabbi John Moscowitz writes in TheGlobe and Mail. “A decent start would be enormous and unrelenting pressure, bi-partisan and across the board, on the White House to lead, and the U.S. Congress to follow suit, in vastly revamping American gun laws.” Even reading this as a sermon, we’re confused. We’re all for gun control, but since when can you legislate away “human evil”?

Linda McQuaig finds a Canadian online gun-seller that, she writes in the Star, “has all the consumer breeziness of online bookseller Amazon.ca, making it easy to forget you’re not dealing with books but rather high-powered weapons which have little use unless you’re planning to wipe out a SWAT team.” Seriously, we should fix this. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve gone shopping for biographies and ended up with a shotgun. They’re really hard to return.

‘Going through the motions’The Vancouver Sun‘s Ian Mulgrew is scarcely more impressed with Missing Women’s Inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal’s recommendations than were the hecklers at his Monday press conference. “Working groups, liaison officers, community workers, mandatory training, research projects, consultation processes,” Mulgrew enumerates. More money for all and sundry. “A regional police force, a new agency for warning the public … there should be an end to endemic poverty!” In Mulgrew’s view, “Oppal might as well have thrown Jell-O at the wall and told the government to adopt whatever sticks.” Oppal was in a unique position to provide “insight” into the systemic failures that allowed this to happen, says Mulgrew; but he “appears to have simply gone through the motions.”

“Pointing a finger now at systemic bias and stereotyping doesn’t get to the nut of why police failed,” the National Post‘s Brian Hutchinson argues. What’s missing “are the accounts from key police members and employees, people close to the investigations and those leading them [that] could have helped answer the real question: Why had [Robert] Pickton eluded detection and arrest for so many years.” Hutchinson supports Oppal’s call for a single regional Vancouver police force, the idea being to reduce inter-force squabbling and miscommunication. But with so much valuable evidence left unheard, strictly organizational solutions seem insufficient.

Duly notedThe Post‘s Jonathan Kay makes what we think is a rather harsh case against Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. It does, as he says, create “a sense of awe when seen from afar” — our favourite view is down Mont-Royal Avenue at dusk — “or when seen from within, amidst the cheering delirium of a full house.” And surely that’s what a stadium’s supposed to do. If it looks like crap close up — and it does — that’s due to shoddy upkeep. And it’s hardly Roger Taillibert’s fault that it was — and good lord, was it ever — a lousy baseball stadium. And we don’t see how it’s “vaguely totalitarian” at all. There isn’t another building like it, anywhere, and there never will be. To us it’s always seemed like an urban Uluru, forlorn and beautiful. But then, we don’t have to pay for the damn thing.

And on the 100th anniversary of Raoul Wellenberg’s birth, Andrew Cohen, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, contrasts Canada’s approach to Europe’s unfolding Holocaust most unfavourably to the famed Swedish businessman’s.

Police investigations into Vancouver’s missing and murdered women “were a blatant failure.” So writes former B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal, in his long-anticipated final report as commissioner of the inquiry called to examine how serial killer Robert (Willie) Pickton got away for years with chopping to pieces local sex trade workers and drug addicts.

Calling investigative efforts from the Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP a “failure” is accurate, but it’s not a bold assessment. Nor is it news to anyone.

As early as 1998, police suspected that Pickton was snatching women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and then murdering them on his Port Coquitlam farm. He was not arrested and charged until February, 2002, after almost two dozen more women went missing. All of this information was raised during Missing Women Commission of Inquiry hearings that began a year ago and ended in May.

Mr. Oppal also writes that police showed a “systemic bias” that “allowed faulty stereotyping of street-involved women.” His inquiry heard police admit as much, during the hearings. The public already knew that reports of women missing from the DTES were downplayed, ignored, not taken seriously. And families of these women — many of them murdered by Pickton — had raised these concerns years before the killer was finally prosecuted. Too often, they were dismissed by senior police and by civilian staff.

Pointing a finger now at systemic bias and stereotyping doesn’t get to the nut of why police failed. What’s sadly missing from Mr. Oppal’s report of nearly 1,500 pages — which he called “Forsaken” — are the accounts from key police members and employees, people close to the investigations and those leading them. They could have helped answer the real question: Why had Pickton eluded detection and arrest for so many years.

From 1997 to 2002, the period under Mr. Oppal’s review, Pickton was killing women, right under the noses of police.

Bev “Puff” Hyacinthe was a civilian member of the RCMP’s Coquitlam detachment, and a Pickton family friend. The inquiry heard that Ms. Hyacinthe once told police investigators that her son had worked on the Pickton farm, prior to the killer’s arrest, and had seen “bloody clothing” in his truck.

She informed RCMP colleagues that Pickton had become aware of surveillance efforts placed on him, in 1998. She also told investigators about a 1999 New Year’s Eve party she attended at Piggy’s Palace, a booze can that Robert Pickton and his younger brother David operated next to their Port Coquitlam farm.

And Ms. Hyacinthe told investigators that she had witnessed Pickton with a woman who was “later determined to have been murdered by Willie.”

Lawyers for the families of 25 murdered and missing women repeatedly asked that Mr. Oppal call Ms. Hyacinthe as an inquiry witness. Her participation seemed crucial; however, the commissioner refused it. “Hyacinthe’s evidence and opinions are not necessary for me to fulfill my mandate,” Mr. Oppal eventually declared.

He also refused requests to put on the witness stand the young RCMP officer who obtained a search warrant that allowed police onto the Pickton farm in February 2002. This, after years of police suspicion around Pickton, and with investigators working — on and off — at his property’s borders. What were the factors behind Cpl. Nathan Wells’ decision to finally seek a search warrant? We still don’t know.

Rather than get at the real guts of the matter, Mr. Oppal hustled the hearings process along, directing key police witnesses to appear in panels of four, curtailing the length and breadth of their testimonies and cross examinations.

Heartbreaking stories

Instead of a full account, he has produced a politically correct document that dwells on many “heartbreaking stories” heard at the inquiry. He lingers on inequalities faced by aboriginals and others living in poverty. These are important issues but they fall outside his formal mandate.

Some family members and aboriginal activists weren’t buying his expressions of mournful concern. Mr. Oppal was constantly interrupted and heckled at a press conference Monday afternoon in Vancouver, while he tried to express his concern for “marginalized women” and aboriginals living in poverty. Protesters called the inquiry process and Mr. Oppal’s report “a sham.”

The document lists 63 recommendations for governments to follow; many would require public funding, were they ever implemented. Mr. Oppal recommends the province establish a “compensation fund for the children of the victims,” and a separate “healing fund for families of the missing and murdered women.” He has also suggested that the City of Vancouver create and fund “two community-based liaison positions to be filled by individuals who have experience in the survival sex trade.”

Jessica Alba (Getty Images)

Mr. Oppal’s most ambitious and sensible recommendation is that the province commit to a regional police force in “Greater Vancouver,” including large municipalities such as Surrey, Richmond and Burnaby; these rely on the RCMP exclusively for police services.

“Greater regionalization of policing in [B.C.’s] Lower Mainland has been under discussion for decades,” notes Mr. Oppal. “Without doubt, one of the critical police failures in the missing women investigations was the failure to address cross-jurisdictional issues and the ineffective co-ordination between police forces and agencies.”

He doesn’t want there to be “yet another study” to determine the feasibility of such a force; Mr. Oppal says “a decisive step must be taken to break this impasse.”

And he’s right. If nothing else, evidence presented at his inquiry proved the current system of multi-jurisdictional police in Vancouver is unwieldy and plagued by turf wars, confusion and occasionally obstruction. But the creation of a regional force would require a huge capital investment, and would necessitate a re-working or “opting out” of existing RCMP contracts.

And so there will be more talk, more consultations. B.C.’s current Attorney-General, Shirley Bond, told reporters that Mr. Oppal’s most important recommendation is “timely” but merits “further discussion” only.

VANCOUVER — The long-anticipated Report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry was released Monday morning to families of women murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton. Titled “Forsaken,” the report by inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal is almost 1,500 pages long and contains 63 recommendations to the B.C. government, which established the inquiry two years ago.

Mr. Oppal was to determine why the Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP did not apprehend Pickton until February 2002, after dozens of women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside had gone missing. Pickton was charged with 26 murders and convicted on six counts in 2007. Another 20 murder charges were eventually stayed.

Among Mr. Oppal’s key recommendations: That the B.C. government establish a regional, Greater Vancouver police force, “through a consultative process with all stakeholders,” and “establish an independent expert committee to develop a proposed model and implementation plan for a Greater Vancouver police force.”

This is somewhat ironic given that when Mr. Oppal was B.C. Attorney General from 2005 to 2009, he did not act on calls for a regional police force.

Mr. Oppal also recommends in his report “measures to prevent violence against aboriginal and rural women,” more “police accountability to communities,” “improved missing person policies and practices.”

In his Summary of Findings of Facts and Conclusions, Mr. Oppal writes that the Vancouver Police and the RCMP both contributed to a series of critical failures with respect to their missing women investigations and to Pickton’s crimes. He says that police failed “to fully investigate Pickton” and failed “to provide sufficient resources to the investigations in line with the potential threat posed by a serial killer.”

Mr. Oppal also writes that “poor report taking and follow up of the missing women amount to critical police failures…. The lack of urgency in the face of mounting numbers of missing women from a small neighbourhood was unreasonable.”

“I make two further overall findings of fact,” his report reads. “First, the missing women investigations were shaped, in large part, by the police failure to get to know the women — an essential step in any investigation of this type is to learn as much as possible about the victim or potential victim. This failure to get to know the victim group meant that inaccurate information about the women, and in particular the belief in the likelihood that they would ‘turn up,’ infiltrated all aspects of the missing and murdered women investigations.

“Second, I find that the additional step of ‘confirming’ the women as missing, rather than accepting a missing person report at face value as policy dictates, was fundamentally wrong and had perverse effects. The result was treating the investigations as ‘reviews’ rather than urgent, priority investigations. This approach therefore likely contributed to the police not realizing the women continued to go missing until 2001.”

I find that the additional step of ‘confirming’ the women as missing, rather than accepting a missing person report at face value as policy dictates, was fundamentally wrong and had perverse effects

Besides looking at the police investigations, Mr. Oppal was also to make findings of fact respecting a 1998 decision made by B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch (CJB), to enter a stay of proceedings against Pickton on attempted murder and unlawful confinement charges. The charges stemmed from a 1997 incident at Pickton’s farm in Port Coquitlam. He allegedly handcuffed and then nearly stabbed to death a prostitute (whom the inquiry called “Ms. Anderson”). Had Pickton been successfully prosecuted, dozens more women whom he allegedly murdered prior to his eventual arrest in 2002 might have survived. CJB witnesses told the inquiry earlier this year that Ms. Anderson, a former drug addict, was not a good witness and their case against Pickton was poor.

Mr. Oppal found that “there were serious limitations on the initial investigation of the Anderson assault by the Coquitlam RCMP in 1997. From 1997 onward, a reasonable person would come to the conclusion that Ms. Anderson may have had important evidence about the missing women, or at least evidence worthy of further investigation. In fact, Ms. Anderson told the police that Pickton told her that he went to the DTES once a week to pickup prostitutes. The likelihood that the assault on Ms. Anderson was not a ‘oneoff’ was clear, and thus it was patently unreasonable that the investigation was not pursued more fully at that time. That evidence together with the earlier incident of sexual assault relating to Pickton were crucial facts that were completely ignored.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Oppal writes in his report that he “cannot second-guess the Stay Decision. Different decisions can be considered reasonable, and in these circumstances two reasonable people could make different decisions based on the same facts.”

Ian Smith/Postmedia News FilesWally Opal in 2011

As expected, Mr. Oppal is deeply critical of both the VPD and the RCMP, saying they failed to pursue all investigative strategies and options available to them. Most of Pickton’s victims were Aboriginal women, but police “failed to employ an Aboriginal-specific investigation strategy,” he writes. “Second, the strategies adopted by police unreasonably restricted the involvement of family members, the community and media in the investigations.” As well, police strategies “were wholly inadequate with respect to the follow up on tips and mismanagement of informants and information sources.” There were also “unacceptable delays in the pursuit of a suspect-based strategy and the failure to confirm or rule out suspects.” Finally Mr. Oppal found that police failed to properly use investigative procedures “such as surveillance, undercover operations, search warrants and forensic evidence.”

While he found “no evidence of widespread institutional bias” in the VPD or RCMP, Mr. Oppal did find “systemic bias in the police response to the missing women investigations.” This systemic bias “allowed faulty stereotyping of street-involved women in the [Downtown Eastside] to negatively impact missing women investigations” and “contributed to a failure to prioritize and effectively investigate the missing women cases.”

A former B.C. Court of Appeal judge, Mr Oppal also highlights in his report a lack of effective police leadership from 1997 to 2002, the period under review. “The problem was so pervasive that it was more than merely a question of adequate leadership: there was an absence of leadership,” writes Mr. Oppal. “No senior manager at the VPD, RCMP E Division Major Crime Section, Coquitlam RCMP, or Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit [PUHU] took on this leadership role and asserted ongoing responsibility for the case.”

He asserts that ineffective police leadership “affected all phases of the investigation, from the delays in confirming women missing, to the breakdown of the initial Pickton investigation, to the delay in setting up a Joint Forces Operation, to the misguided operational plan for Project Evenhanded.”

more to come

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/17/long-awaited-pickton-inquiry-calls-for-greater-vancouver-police/feed/3stdGrand Chief Edward John, centre of the Tl'azt'en First Nation, comforts Summer "CJ" Morningstar Fowler's mother Matilda Fowler, right, of the Gitanmaax First Nation near Hazelton, B.C., as her father Glen Wilson carries her photograph after a news conference in Vancouver, B.C., on Wednesday December 12, 2012. The body of their daughter was found in Kamloops December 5, an autopsy confirmed it was homicide but RCMP haven't released details of how she died.CrimeSceneIan Smith/Postmedia News FilesPublic report examines why police failed to catch B.C. serial killer Robert Picktonhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/17/public-report-examines-why-police-failed-to-catch-b-c-serial-killer-robert-pickton/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/17/public-report-examines-why-police-failed-to-catch-b-c-serial-killer-robert-pickton/#commentsMon, 17 Dec 2012 15:06:26 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=244181

VANCOUVER — Families who lost daughters, mothers and sisters to serial killer Robert Pickton have long known police failed them as the former pig farmer hunted for victims in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and lured them back to his property.

But a lengthy public inquiry report to be released today will attempt to answer the more difficult question of why two police forces were unable — or unwilling — to connect the dots that led from missing sex workers in Vancouver to a farm in nearby Port Coquitlam, B.C.

Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal is scheduled to release his final report on how Vancouver police and the RCMP responded to reports of missing women and why it took them so long to finally stop Pickton, who was arrested in February 2002 — several years after investigators first received tips implicating him.

Oppal’s 1,448-page report is expected to outline what happened, who’s to blame and, more importantly, what must be done to prevent the same thing from happening again.

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn Crey’s DNA was found on Pickton’s farm, said he’s optimistic Oppal’s report will offer meaningful recommendations to make the system better for women like his sister, who suffered from mental illness and turned to prostitution to fuel her drug addiction.

“What I’m expecting to see is a lengthy, unblinking, hard-hitting report with some very strong recommendations on how policing might be improved in this province, such that if a Pickton-like character ever emerges in the future — God forbid — that he’s in the clutches of the police far earlier,” Crey said in an interview.

Ward Perrin / Postmedia News files New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix speaks, March 29, 2012, during a press conference at the Vancouver office asking for the government to extend the Missing Women's Inquiry. Robert Pickton victims, Dianne Rock (left) and Cara Ellis (right) are shown in the framed photographs.

The inquiry heard from 80 witnesses between October 2011 and June of this year, including relatives of Pickton’s victims, current and former police officers and Crown prosecutors, each offering their own stories and their own recommendations to fix the system.

Oppal also heard from fierce critics, both from outside and inside the hearing room, who denounced the process as flawed and unable to uncover the systemic problems that led Pickton’s victims into the sex trade in the first place and prevented police from doing more to protect them.

Critics included advocacy groups that boycotted the hearings after the provincial government denied them legal funding, as well as lawyers for families of missing and murdered women who had standing at the inquiry.

Crey offered his own, measured criticisms as the inquiry unfolded, and he’s still concerned Oppal’s report won’t focus enough on the underlying problems affecting vulnerable sex workers, many of them, like his sister, aboriginal. He notes the inquiry’s terms of reference were heavily focused on examining the actions of police.

Still, Crey prefers to see Oppal’s report as a step toward change, not the final answer.

“I would be pleasantly surprised if he went further than his terms of reference and made observations and comments about the social circumstances of the women, their lives in the Downtown Eastside, and how things might be improved there, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” he said.

“But I’m not saying that once this report is in, that’s where it all ends. That’s not where I’m going to end my campaign to make things different for people like my sister. They’re not going to hear less from me, they are going to hear more. It’s only the beginning for me.”

The report will be released at a news conference in Vancouver, a short walk from the blighted streets of the Downtown Eastside where Pickton found his victims more than a decade ago.

The women’s families will be given four hours to read the report before it is released to the public at 1 p.m. PT, and Oppal discusses its contents. His presentation will be streamed live on the Internet.

He will be followed by Justice Minister Shirley Bond, who will outline the province’s initial response to Oppal’s recommendations.

Oppal has said little publicly about what might be in his final report, but his recommendations will likely focus on how police should investigate major cases that spread across jurisdictions, particularly those involving serial killers and sex workers.

He told a policy forum connected to the inquiry earlier this year that he’ll likely recommend improvements to services in the Downtown Eastside, including a drop-in centre for survival sex workers, which he described as a “no-brainer.”

Vancouver police and the RCMP offered apologies at the inquiry, but they also blamed each other. Vancouver police said the RCMP dropped the ball as Mounties in Port Coquitlam investigated Pickton. The RCMP said the Vancouver police failed to notice a serial killer was operating in their city.

Police received the first tips about Pickton’s involvement in the murder of Downtown Eastside sex workers in 1998, but he wasn’t arrested until February 2002, when RCMP officers armed with a search warrant related to illegal firearms raided his farm.

He was subsequently convicted of six counts of second-degree murder, though the remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm. He once told an undercover police officer that he killed 49 women.

VANCOUVER — Public hearings ended months ago but work continues behind the scenes at the controversial Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, where lawyers and other handpicked staff members continue to bill B.C. taxpayers at rates that former inquiry participants claim are “outrageous” and “out of control.”

The province’s latest public accounts record reveals that senior inquiry workers including commissioner Wally Oppal commanded more pay in the last fiscal year than B.C.’s most highly compensated public servants, including its longest-serving judges, provincial cabinet ministers and their deputies, and all but a handful of top Crown corporation executives.

Senior commission counsel Art Vertlieb topped the list, charging the province $483,741 for inquiry work performed in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Associate counsel Karey Brooks and her Vancouver-based law firm billed taxpayers $482,139 over the same period. Mr. Oppal, meanwhile, charged $324,267, according to the public accounts.

Jessica McKeachie, a first-year lawyer whom Mr. Oppal hired to conduct research, billed the province $203,134. Another young inquiry lawyer with three years’ experience charged taxpayers $236,606 for her work.

Inquiry executive director John Boddie, a former Vancouver Police Department (VPD) sergeant who handles office administration duties for the commission, billed the province $299,807. That’s twice the amount billed over 12 months by the executive director at the recently concluded Braidwood Commissions of Inquiry, called to examine the use of Tasers by B.C. police forces and the 2007 death of Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski.

Ultimately, the small staff of the Commission worked very long hours, most weekends and holidays

Mr. Boddie’s renumeration was close to VPD chief constable Jim Chu’s annual paypacket, and exceeded almost all provincial bureaucrat salaries. Only John Dyble, deputy minister to B.C. premier Christy Clark and head of the province’s entire public service, was paid more.

For reasons that no one has explained, Mr. Boddie billed the province via his wife’s company, Paula Boddie & Associates.

In contrast, the lawyer who represented the families of 25 murdered and missing women at the inquiry billed the province $60,000 for work in the same fiscal year. Another Vancouver-based lawyer, Jason Gratl, billed $143,100 for his work at the inquiry; he represented local community interests. The amount covered his own fees and expenses, plus the services of an assistant and an articling student, he explained. Unlike inquiry lawyers and staff, who billed by the hour, Mr. Gratl was paid a flat monthly fee. “It worked out to something like legal aid rates,” he added.

One lawyer who played a key role at the inquiry called the amounts charged by inquiry staff “outrageous.” And a lawyer who worked for the inquiry and was familiar with its internal accounting practices said there did not appear to be any “checks and balances…it seemed out of control.” Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

In a written statement, Mr. Vertlieb noted that rates of pay “were discounted from normal market rates and agreed to by the government. We have always been very conscious of the fact that this important Commission is funded by the public. Ultimately, the small staff of the Commission worked very long hours, most weekends and holidays.”

The Braidwood inquiries — one examined police use of Tasers in general, a second the Dziekanski Taser death — cost taxpayers an estimated $4.5-million in total. Mr. Oppal’s inquiry has already cost the province $7.85-million, according to B.C. attorney general Shirley Bond, and the meter is still running. Some inquiry staff — including Mr. Oppal, Mr. Vertlieb and Mr. Boddie — remain on the job and continue to bill for their services. Mr. Oppal has until Oct. 31 to deliver his final report to B.C.’s attorney general.

The inquiry was formed in September, 2010, with a mandate to examine why the VPD and the RCMP failed to apprehend serial killer Robert Pickton prior to 2002, by which time he had allegedly murdered at least 26 women. Pickton was convicted on six counts of second degree murder in 2007; 20 other murder charges were later stayed.

We have always been very conscious of the fact that this important Commission is funded by the public

Seven community forums were held in September, 2011. Evidentiary hearings began in October and ended in June amidst controversy and anger; families of Pickton’s victims said the inquiry didn’t probe deeply enough into police conduct.

Mr. Oppal was a controversial choice for inquiry commissioner. A former B.C. Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judge, he turned to provincial politics and was elected to represent a Vancouver riding in 2005. He served as the province’s attorney general during the Pickton trial. Mr. Oppal was not re-elected in the 2009 provincial election.

Mr. Vertlieb, his chief counsel at the inquiry, is an experienced Vancouver litigator and is currently vice-president of the B.C. Law Society, the body that governs the legal profession in the province. Mr. Vertlieb also served as senior counsel at the Braidwood inquiries, where his billings never exceeded $271,000 per fiscal year.

To date, Mr. Vertlieb has charged the province a total of $1,222,250 for his work at the Braidwood and Oppal inquiries.

During an interview conducted in March, Mr. Boddie told the National Post that he “takes no holidays” from the inquiry, even during scheduled breaks. He had just returned from a week-long trip to Arizona, where he said he spent his time reading inquiry documents.

VANCOUVER — Corporal Jim Brown has worked from the RCMP’s Coquitlam detachment for decades. He played a small but important role in the Mounties’ investigation of Robert (Willie) Pickton, the serial killer who murdered women and disposed of their bodies on a pig farm just a few kilometres from the same Coquitlam detachment.

Tami Chappell/Reuters filesAlabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and supporters on Aug. 22, 2003, when he was suspended for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove a 10 Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.

Cpl. Brown had an alter ego: A boot-wearing sadomasochist. In a shocking story published Thursday, Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew described several photographs made available for public viewing on Internet websites catering to bondage and sadomasochism enthusiasts.

Hundreds more photos of Cpl. Brown in various S&M positions continue to circulate on the Internet. It’s wretched stuff. Just as disturbing, Cpl. Brown’s RCMP superiors have known about the photos since December 2010. An internal investigation was initiated then, and a decision was made to let the matter slide.

In an email exchange Thursday with the National Post, RCMP Supt. Ray Bernoties explained that “[RCMP] Legal Services deemed this to be off duty, non-criminal, adult consensual activity during which the individual was not representing himself as a member of the RCMP and thus did not appear to them to meet the threshold for a Code of Conduct violation.

“While I agree the staged images are very graphic, they appear only on an adult site catering to those that seek them out,” Supt. Bernoties continued. “Having said that, I am very concerned and frankly embarrassed that the RCMP would, in any way, be linked to photos of this nature.”

While I agree the staged images are very graphic, they appear only on an adult site catering to those that seek them out

The Post has learned that other sexually explicit photographs depicting Cpl. Brown were discovered inside the Coquitlam detachment itself. The digitally rendered photos were stored in a small USB device, which was left inserted in a computer and found by other RCMP members.

Supt. Bernoties confirmed the existence of the USB device and its sexually explicit file contents. He added that “the RCMP first learned of the graphic staged photos around December 2010. This activity was investigated at that time and legal opinion sought. In March 2012, the issue of the member’s life style was again investigated. Following that, Cpl. Brown’s personal website was terminated.”

According to sources, Cpl. Brown is now working in an administrative capacity inside the Coquitlam detachment.

Something — media scrutiny, perhaps — has triggered the Mounties to take another, more thorough look at Cpl. Brown’s off-duty, adult consensual activities. They have launched a formal Code of Conduct review, “examining all the events,” to be conducted by RCMP members in Richmond.

“We have also taken the unusual step of requesting an external police agency to conduct an independent review of the internal investigation,” Supt. Bernoties told the Post.

A number of Code of Conduct reviews have been launched lately. Some involve officers convicted of crimes such as assault, theft, and drunk driving. Other officers have admitted to inappropriate sexual behaviour. The list of offences is lengthy.

The reviews are part of the RCMP’s discipline process and performed by “impartial” Mounties, usually drawn from a Professional Standards Unit. They rarely end with a dismissal order against an offending officer. Usually, an offender is docked some pay. Officers can appeal decisions, which can add years to the lengthy and cumbersome process. In many cases, officers retire before disciplinary procedures are completed.

Based on appearances in his sadomasochism photos, Cpl. Brown looks to be at the typical retirement age for an RCMP member.

We have also taken the unusual step of requesting an external police agency to conduct an independent review of the internal investigation

His name and his Internet nickname — Kilted Knight — were discussed during hearings at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, formed to examine why police bungled their investigations of Robert Pickton.

The inquiry heard that in 1999, Cpl. Brown “produced” a key Pickton informant for the Vancouver Police Department. The source had knowledge about criminal activities — including murder — on the Pickton farm. Sadly, three more years passed before RCMP arrested Pickton. He was eventually charged with 26 counts of murder, and tried in 2007. He was convicted on six counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

In May, an inquiry lawyer representing the families of Pickton’s victims suggested to two sworn witnesses — both former Coquitlam detachment members — that Cpl. Brown and other RCMP officers had, in the 1990s, attended social functions at Piggy’s Palace, a local booze can run by Pickton and his brother David, and popular with Hells Angels gang members.

Both of the former Coquitlam officers denied any knowledge of RCMP social visits to Piggy’s Palace.

Inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal said in a statement late Thursday that he has “no evidence to support reopening” the inquiry hearings, which concluded in June; however, he has asked his commission counsel to look into the Brown-sadomasochism revelations, and B.C.’s Ministry of Justice has been notified. Mr. Oppal has until the end of October to submit his inquiry report to B.C.’s justice minister, Shirley Bond.

Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of a story that first appeared Thursday and referred to photo depictions of violence involving knives. The identity of an individual depicted wielding a knife is in question.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/05/brian-hutchinson-rcmp-launch-new-code-of-conduct-review-after-officer-caught-posing-like-pickton-in-sm-photos/feed/0stdSerial killer Robert Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C.A cropped version of one of the images alleged to be of Jim BrownBrian Hutchinson on the Pickton Inquiry: Whole story still untoldhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/15/brian-hutchinson-on-the-pickton-inquiry-whole-story-still-untold/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/15/brian-hutchinson-on-the-pickton-inquiry-whole-story-still-untold/#commentsSat, 16 Jun 2012 03:09:17 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=82092

Near the end of the hearings, with questions still hanging and more tempers flaring, and police and their counsel pointing fingers again, a lawyer for one RCMP witness approached this reporter.

“What are we doing here? Look at all of us,” he said, scanning the room where the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry held its hearings. A room in downtown Vancouver, filled with some of the city’s finest legal minds, but also with anger, recrimination, loss. The lawyer shook his head. “What’s been the point?”

Related

The inquiry was called to examine why, from 1997 to February 2002, the Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP failed to stop Robert (Willie) Pickton — their prime suspect in dozens of cases of missing women — from apprehending his victims and chopping their corpses into pieces. He was killing prostitutes, right under the noses of police. Wally Oppal, the former provincial attorney general appointed to lead the inquiry, called an end to the hearings last week. He says he wants to make recommendations to ensure such an outrage never happens again.

But some believed the entire process was unnecessary. Pickton is in prison, serving life sentences on six murder convictions. Twenty other murder charges he faced have been stayed; there will not be another trial, but he’s locked up for good.

Others thought the inquiry’s design and mandate were fatally flawed. Aboriginal groups refused provincial funding to hire their own lawyers and participate as equals. They called the inquiry a “sham” and held protests outside.

The inquiry was called in 2010, one of Gordon Campbell’s last acts as B.C. premier. Some critics said that appointing his former attorney general was a glaring mistake. Mr. Oppal proved an impatient commissioner whose strange behaviour outside inquiry hours — in particular, his decision in April to play the role of a serial killer’s victim in a violent slasher film — raised additional questions about his judgment and common sense.

Police had known quite a lot, it would emerge

But the point was never lost on the victims’ relatives. Nor was it lost on certain police officers, men and women who had been “on to” Pickton years before his 2002 arrest, and knew of his predilection for skid-row prostitutes, and his violence and threats, and the illegal cockfights he hosted on his grubby pig farm every weekend during summer and the illegal booze can across the street that he ran with his younger brother, David. The one frequented by minors and Hells Angels and people off the street. Police had known quite a lot, it would emerge.

“It has been determined that [a stabbing victim whom Pickton allegedly attempted to murder] is an East Hastings area hooker and Pickton is known to frequent that area weekly,” read a March 1997 RCMP report entered into evidence at the inquiry. “Given the violence shown by Pickton towards prostitutes and women in general, this information is being forwarded to your attention…”

“Discussed Pickton again,” a staff sergeant at the RCMP’s Coquitlam detachment wrote in his notebook in April 2000, the inquiry learned. “If he turns out to be responsible — inquiry! — Deal with that if the time comes!”

Officers involved in the botched missing women and Pickton investigations all lawyered up. Dramas unfolded, inside and outside the inquiry room. Some lawyers quit. Mr. Oppal is now writing his final report, due Oct. 31. There’s a fear it will read as incomplete, because the whole truth never came out. Shocking evidence was presented, but documents were missed and potential witnesses thought to have critical information weren’t called. Not every detail was read, nor every voice heard.

—

Mr. Oppal’s hearings ran almost nine months before time ran out. Near the end, even the commissioner was raising concerns about late disclosure from police. “Here we are at the end of the inquiry and we’re getting — we’re getting material that should have been produced months ago,” he said in May.

Yet he suggested more than once that he’d heard enough. Current and former VPD officers and their lawyers had outlined their position, and it didn’t budge: There were good cops, women and men who had tried to investigate cases of missing women despite their inexperience and inadequate resources. Yes, mistakes were made. “Systemic” problems existed. Some officers, especially senior management types, seemed to care not a whit about missing “hookers.” They thought the women would eventually turn up alive.

During hearings, the VPD criticized the RCMP, and vice versa. Vancouver police were late to identify women as missing and as potential victims of homicide. But look where the murders took place: On a pig farm, five kilometres from an RCMP detachment in Coquitlam, B.C. This was RCMP turf. And Pickton was known to local Mounties, years before his arrest.

In 1997, Pickton allegedly stabbed a Vancouver prostitute on his farm, nearly killing her

In 1997, Pickton allegedly stabbed a Vancouver prostitute on his farm, nearly killing her. Attempted murder charges against Pickton were dropped by B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch the next year, something that flummoxed RCMP Corporal Mike Connor, the local Mountie who investigated the case.

By 1998, the inquiry heard, Cpl. Connor was convinced that Pickton was responsible for missing women, and that police sources were giving straight goods about mayhem and death on the farm. The veteran, barrel-chested Mountie spent countless off-duty hours thinking about the suspect, even sitting outside the Pickton farm in his car, looking for unusual activity.

In mid-1999, he received a promotion, and against his wishes, was yanked off the case. Cpl. Connor’s transfer “had a devastating impact on the investigation,” the inquiry was told. Cpl. Connor, who is retired from the force, testified in February. Like some other officers who had been close to the case, he said he has suffered depression and post traumatic stress. He described his frustration with the manner in which colleagues handled the Pickton investigation, once he’d left the case. It had literally made him sick.

—

With the clock ticking, Mr. Oppal became more impatient, telling lawyers to speed up their performances and chastising those who requested more time. By April, key witnesses were being bundled into four-person “panels” and giving fragmentary testimonies. Lawyers had an hour or less to cross-examine an entire panel at once, a perversion of “natural justice,” complained Cameron Ward, counsel for families of 25 missing and murdered women. Mr. Oppal replied that the new format, while “unusual,” was fair.

Some witnesses were called to testify with little notice; others were suddenly knocked off the inquiry’s list, with no reasons given to participants. The whole process seemed ad hoc.

Four crucial police witnesses — three former Mounties from the Coquitlam detachment, and one retired member from the RCMP’s Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit — were called to testify as a panel over two days in May, near the end. Their appearances were long-anticipated; these officers had been there. They could explain a lot.

In 2000, the inquiry heard, Mr. Henley was assigned to assist Coquitlam with their flagging Pickton file. He did anything but help, it has been alleged

Earl Moulton was the Coquitlam detachment’s former operations boss. Darryl Pollock was its former supervisor, and Ruth Chapman was a former corporal who took over the Pickton investigation from Cpl. Connor. And there was Frank Henley, a former homicide investigator based in Vancouver.

In 2000, the inquiry heard, Mr. Henley was assigned to assist Coquitlam with their flagging Pickton file. He did anything but help, it has been alleged.

In one extraordinary episode, characterized by a lawyer representing the Downtown Eastside community (where Pickton trolled for victims) as “quite contrary to police practice and possibly amounting to sabotage,” Mr. Henley made a solo trip to the Pickton farm, without telling his colleagues. He secretly met with Pickton a year before the killer’s arrest; Pickton was still murdering women. It was “like really, very much a social visit,” Mr. Henley would recall, in an interview conducted prior to his inquiry appearance.

He spent about an hour with Robert Pickton, wandering his cluttered property and looking at old cars. Incredibly, he told Pickton about a confidential police informant, a man who had shocking, incriminating knowledge of him. Mr. Henley also revealed to the suspect the name of another potential informant, a woman who eventually testified against Pickton at his murder trial.

Did you consider whether or not you were putting a potential informant … at risk?

“Did you consider whether or not you were putting a potential informant … at risk?” senior commission counsel Art Vertlieb asked Mr. Henley, on May 14.

“No,” replied Mr. Henley. “I just wanted to meet [Pickton] and see him.” And that was the end of that; lawyers for other inquiry participants complained they had not enough minutes allocated to conduct proper cross-examinations of Mr. Henley, let alone the other police witnesses.

Things went from bad to worse. Mr. Ward, lawyer for the families of Pickton’s victims, had previously asked Mr. Oppal to call other witnesses: police informants already identified at the inquiry, and widely discussed; David Pickton, who was never charged and never testified at his brother’s trial; more RCMP officers. Those requests were denied.

Mr. Ward also wanted to hear from an RCMP civilian employee named Bev “Puff” Hyacinthe, who had worked in the Coquitlam detachment. Mr. Ward argued that Ms. Hyacinthe had known the Pickton brothers “personally” and had shared alarming details about them with her police colleagues. Details were sketchy; Mr. Ward wanted the inquiry to hear from Ms. Hyacinthe directly. Mr. Oppal denied the application in April. He gave no reasons.

Mr. Ward subsequently read into the inquiry record some extracts from interviews that, he said, Ms. Hyacinthe had conducted with police after Pickton’s arrest. Ms. Hyacinthe told investigators that she’d known Pickton for 20 years. Her husband had grown up with the Pickton brothers; he had once helped the Picktons bury stolen vehicles on their farm. Her son had worked on their farm, she had told investigators, and he’d been “in Willie’s truck one time and there was bloody clothing in it that stunk.”

According to Mr. Ward, Ms. Hyacinthe had also described to investigators parties she’d attended at Piggy’s Palace, the Picktons’ illegal booze can. She described it as “a zoo with people in attendance,” said Mr. Ward. “There were Hells Angels, there were people off the streets.”

‘Coquitlam RCMP just slipped away.’ So did the full story, and some of the truth. Too often that seemed the real point

Ms. Hyacinthe told police about a 1999 New Year’s Eve party she attended at Piggy’s Palace. “Willie brought a date,” she told police, according to Mr. Ward, referring to police documents. She told police she saw a photo of the same woman a few weeks later, in a newspaper. The woman had gone missing; she was “later determined to have been murdered by Willie,” said Mr. Ward.

Bev Hyacinthe had taken photos at that New Year’s Eve party, said Mr. Ward, again referring to police documents. She had offered the photos to police. What about all of this, he asked the four RCMP panelists.

“All I can say is, if this is the state of Puff’s knowledge at some earlier point, I sure wish she’d made it known to us,” said Mr. Moulton, the detachment’s former boss.

If she had not made her story known earlier, then why? What else had she not shared with her police colleagues? Could her information have cracked the Pickton case earlier? No one knows, because Ms. Hyacinthe didn’t testify. Mr. Oppal didn’t want to hear from her, and now it’s too late.

“Those two days in May were a procedural and evidentiary low point in the inquiry,” another lawyer reflected later. “Coquitlam RCMP just slipped away.” So did the full story, and some of the truth. Too often that seemed the real point.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/15/brian-hutchinson-on-the-pickton-inquiry-whole-story-still-untold/feed/0stdThere’s worry the final report of Missing Women’s Inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal, above, will be read as incomplete, because the whole truth about Robert “Willie” Pickton, below, and the crimes he committed never came out. Pickton was arrested in 2002, but police had been “on to” him years before.Meeting with Hells Angel a ‘casual’ encounter, head of Pickton inquiry sayshttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/08/meeting-with-hells-angel-a-casual-encounter-head-of-pickton-inquiry-says/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/08/meeting-with-hells-angel-a-casual-encounter-head-of-pickton-inquiry-says/#commentsSat, 09 Jun 2012 00:57:23 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=182125

VANCOUVER — The head of a controversial public inquiry called to examine how police botched investigations into serial killer Robert Pickton has admitted to having recently engaged in a “casual” encounter and conversation with a Hells Angels motorcycle club member.

“I recently attended a public entertainment event at B.C. Place Stadium,” Wally Oppal, the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry chief, said in a statement emailed from his office to inquiry participants late Friday afternoon. “During this event, I had the occasion to briefly speak with a person that, unbeknownst to me, is reportedly a member of the Hells Angels.

“Not being aware of this person’s reported affiliations, I had a casual conversation with him. Had I known that this person was reportedly a member of the Hells Angels, I would not have had even this brief exchange with him.”

A former B.C. Court of Appeal judge and former B.C. Attorney General, Mr. Oppal said that while the exchange “was of no substance, when I learned of the reported affiliation of this person, I felt it was necessary to communicate what happened to [inquiry] participants.”

Unsubstantiated rumours surfaced earlier this week that Mr. Oppal had been captured on camera in the company of a full-patch Hells Angel member. Mr. Oppal was purportedly seen embracing the person.

Public hearings at the missing women inquiry concluded this week, with some lawyers questioning why evidence regarding relationships between members of the Hells Angels, police, Robert Pickton and his brother, David Pickton, was not introduced or closely examined. Mr. Oppal made a number of rulings over the course of the hearings phase that angered some lawyers and their clients.

Postmedia News files

The inquiry has been beset with controversy since it was called by the B.C. government in 2010. Hearings began in October. By February, citing lack of proper document disclosure by police, a lawyer for the families of 25 missing and murdered women alleged that the inquiry was “enabling a police cover-up,” a charge that Mr Oppal vigorously denied.

In April, the National Post brought to light allegations of harassment and intimidation occurring inside the commission of inquiry office in Vancouver. The commission’s executive director, a former Vancouver Police Department sergeant, was placed on paid leave and a Vancouver lawyer was appointed to investigate the allegations. A second Vancouver lawyer, Peter Gall, was appointed to oversee the investigation and act as a media contact. The Post asked Mr. Gall this week to provide an investigation update. He did not offer one.

Later in April, Mr. Oppal appeared in a sadistic slasher movie filmed in Vancouver. He played the victim of a serial killer, a role he said he enjoyed. Relatives of women murdered by Pickton said they were appalled at Mr. Oppal’s behaviour.

Mr. Oppal insisted in his email sent Friday that his “brief, chance exchange” with the Hells Angel member “does not have any impact or influence on the report and recommendations I will develop.” He is to submit his report to the province in October.

Cameron Ward was not long into his closing submission Monday morning when the fireworks started. Or resumed, for there have been many eruptions, explosions and bitter exchanges involving the lawyer and Missing Women Commission of Inquiry boss Wally Oppal since hearings began in October.

A public inquiry is supposed to be an uncompromising, thorough and transparent search for the truth, Mr. Ward said in his final remarks. It is supposed to be fair. “This one wasn’t,” he said. “This inquiry didn’t finish its job…. This inquiry has raised more questions than it has answered.”

Mr. Ward represents the families of 25 missing and murdered women, most of whom were poor and aboriginal and victims of Robert Pickton. Led by Mr. Oppal, a former judge and B.C. attorney general, the inquiry was supposed to examine how police failed to apprehend Pickton before he had murdered — by his own estimate — 49 women.

Lawyers representing individuals and groups with inquiry standing have each been allotted 60 minutes this week, in which to summarize their clients’ positions on evidence heard over eight months.

Mr. Ward led off, racing through examples of Vancouver Police Department and RCMP racism, prejudice and investigative “negligence.” He admonished B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch for deciding in 1998 to stay a charge of attempted murder laid against Pickton. The stay came four years before he was finally apprehended and charged with 26 murders. (Pickton was convicted on six of the counts in 2007; the remaining 20 charges were not pursued.)

Andy Clark/Reuters filesErnie Cray stands at the gate of the former pig farm owned by serial killer Robert "Willie" Pickton in Port Coquitlam.

Between the 1998 stay and Pickton’s 2002 arrest, “twenty-four of my clients’ loved ones were killed,” said Mr. Ward.

‘You, as attorney general in 2008, said there was no point in putting Robert Pickton on trial for the [remaining] 20 counts of first degree murder’

He saved his most stinging salvos for the commission of inquiry itself. It had “perpetuated attitudes of indifference and disrespect” already shown by police to the families of the missing.

Mr. Ward alleged that “backroom dealings” were conducted among police, inquiry witnesses and inquiry staff. The commission of inquiry allowed police to “cover-up embarrassing past mistakes.” Disclosure of “many” police documents was late and incomplete.

He took direct aim at the commissioner, pointing a finger at Mr. Oppal. “You, as attorney general in 2008, said there was no point in putting Robert Pickton on trial for the [remaining] 20 counts of first degree murder.” One could not underestimate “the permanent pain that that decision caused,” Mr. Ward said.

Mr. Oppal had heard almost enough. “You have five more minutes,” he told Mr. Ward, who replied that five minutes weren’t nearly enough. The commissioner, he noted, had just been granted by the province an extra five months to write his final inquiry report. Give the families 15 more minutes to present their closing submission, said Mr. Ward. Show the families “some respect.”

“No one shows more respect for the families than I do,” snapped Mr. Oppal. Forgetting, perhaps, the offence he caused two months ago, when he appeared in a sadistic slasher movie filmed in B.C. Mr. Oppal played the victim of a serial killer, a role he said he had enjoyed very much.

In the public gallery, angry whispers buzzed. “This is bullshit,” declared an aboriginal woman. She walked out.

Mr. Ward continued, cramming in as much as he could with the time he had left. Other recent public inquiries in Vancouver ended with recommendations that police not investigate police, he noted. But this inquiry has relied heavily on official police accounts of how their Pickton investigations derailed. “That was completely wrong, in my respectful submission,” said Mr. Ward. “The police were allowed and were enabled to control the inquiry agenda.”

Mr. Oppal snapped again. “All relevant evidence has been called,” he said. Forgetting, perhaps, about those witnesses — police officers, Pickton’s brother David, their associates — whom he was asked to call but whom he refused, for reasons he has kept to himself.

Outside the inquiry room, after Mr. Ward was ordered to stop, some family members talked about the need for “an inquiry into the inquiry.” Others wept.
National Postbhutchinson@nationalpost.com

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/05/brian-hutchinson-pickton-inquiry-under-fire-to-the-end/feed/0std'This inquiry didn’t finish its job.... This inquiry has raised more questions than it has answered,' lawyer Cameron Ward said Monday.Ernie Cray stands at the gate of the former pig farm owned by serial killer Robert "Willie" Pickton in Port Coquitlam.Robert Pickton inquiry commissioner gets four extra months to finish reporthttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/31/robert-pickton-inquiry-commissioner-gets-four-extra-months-to-finish-report/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/31/robert-pickton-inquiry-commissioner-gets-four-extra-months-to-finish-report/#commentsThu, 31 May 2012 21:36:52 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=178987

VANCOUVER — The commissioner overseeing the Robert Pickton inquiry has received a four-month extension to produce his final report, but the hearings will end as scheduled next week.

Commissioner Wally Oppal has been looking into why police failed to catch Pickton earlier than his arrest in February 2002, but a series of delays have made it increasingly unlikely he would finish his work by June 30.

Attorney General Shirley Bond has given Oppal a four-month extension and is now asking that his final report be finished by Oct 31.

But Bond says Oppal, who opened the inquiry last October, did not ask for any additional time to hear evidence.

She says Oppal has been given adequate time to conduct his work and she’s confident he’ll be able to fulfil his mandate.

A number of families of Pickton’s victims, their lawyer and the Opposition NDP have demanded Bond give Oppal more time, saying there are several witnesses that have yet to be heard that are important to understanding why police failed to catch Pickton.

I had simply seen too much, felt too much and knew too much. I wanted out.—Vancouver police officer and former missing women investigator Lori Shenher

Lori Shenher thought her career as a police officer was over. The reasons: Pickton trauma. Burn-out. Guilt, the result of failure. Anger. For more than two years, from 1998 to 2000, Ms. Shenher had led a Vancouver Police Department unit tasked with finding missing women. And in that time, more women went missing and were murdered by Robert Pickton. The Port Coquitlam pig farmer had been in police sights — her sights — a long time.

Pickton was her prime suspect. He was placed under police surveillance, yet he continued to kill and dispose of bodies at his farm. When he was finally arrested in 2002, Ms. Shenher didn’t celebrate. She despaired, knowing a serial killer had slipped through her fingers. While on leave, suffering from post-traumatic stress and thinking she would never return to police work, she decided to spill her guts. Ms. Shenher sat in front of her computer and began to write.

The result was a 289-page manuscript that Toronto-based publisher McClelland & Stewart planned to have in bookstores by September 2003. But circumstances changed. The manuscript was never published. It was buried and stayed that way until this year, when lawyers representing the families of Pickton’s victims at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in Vancouver forced its disclosure and requested that it be made public.

During hearings in April, several passages from the Shenher manuscript were read into the inquiry record. Some lawyers argued the entire document should be entered as evidence. Commissioner Wally Oppal rejected their arguments last week. The National Post has obtained a copy of the manuscript and is publishing previously undisclosed details for the first time.

‘It is only now that I recognize all of the signs and signals of burnout and post traumatic stress disorder brought on by doing a horrible job for an unsupportive and incompetent organization,” Ms. Shenher wrote, a year after Pickton’s arrest. “I was no longer able to bear the weight of our ineptitude and rationalization…. It had always been Pickton.”

Her book is the rawest, most immediate and revealing account of the botched missing women and Pickton investigations. It describes a major Canadian police department plagued by indifference, in-fighting, sexism, racism. And it reveals much about Ms. Shenher herself.

She was a fish out of water, a young lesbian trying to work her way up in an alpha male world. The VPD was not an exceptionally tolerant or progressive workplace in 1991, the year Ms. Shenher joined. Hostilities were common inside headquarters and on the street. She recalls how officers sometimes played it old school, kicking down doors and roughing up suspects.

After working on various assignments — patrol, surveillance, a prostitution task force in Vancouver’s crime-infested Downtown Eastside — Ms. Shenher joined the VPD’s Missing Persons Unit in July 1998. Despite her lack of seniority, she was made the unit’s lead investigator and file co-ordinator. It seemed the VPD brass had finally accepted that prostitutes from the Downtown Eastside were vanishing without a trace. Those cases became her focus.

‘There was
no real plan to
find these women’

Early in her assignment, she wrote, then-VPD inspector Peter Ditchfield suggested it “would very likely turn into a serial killer investigation.” She felt she had arrived. But her enthusiasm for the job waned when she discovered how thinly resourced the missing persons unit really was. It was moribund, perhaps by design, Ms. Shenher suggests in her account.

“There was no real plan to find these women,” she wrote, in one of the few passages that were read into the inquiry record last month. “I see now that I was merely a figurehead, a sacrificial lamb thrown into an investigation the VPD management was convinced would never amount to anything and would never grow into the tragedy it has become. An investigation they could care less about.”

Ms. Shenher is extremely critical of her colleagues; few are spared from her bitter attacks. She began at the top.

“At the time, beleaguered former chief constable Bruce Chambers was running the VPD,” she wrote. “Between trying to manage a highly dysfunctional organization and sniffing out snakes in his own senior management team, he was busy and not particularly interested in a bunch of missing hookers and drug addicts.”

The passage was read back to Ms. Shenher last month, when she returned to the inquiry for cross-examination by Cameron Ward, a lawyer for the families of the murdered and missing women. “I stand by that,” she testified.

The unit operated from a tiny, “airless and windowless” room inside department headquarters on Main Street. Missing person complaints were handled by a civilian clerk named Sandra Cameron, whom Ms. Shenher alleged in her book was prone to “diatribes and rants.”

On one occasion, “I listened to [Ms. Cameron] speaking to someone on the phone, obviously growing more and more impatient and agitated. Finally, she shouted into the receiver, ‘SPEAK ENGLISH, THIS IS CA-NA-DA.’ This was not the first time I had witnessed [such] behaviour on her part and I had had enough.”

In another passage read aloud into the inquiry proceedings by lawyer Ward, Ms. Shenher recalls asking Ms. Cameron “who she had ‘blown’ to manage to retain her job all of these years. She just laughed, perhaps thinking I was kidding. I wasn’t.”

Ms. Shenher received compelling information that summer, tips that identified Robert “Willie” Pickton, a creepy loner living on a messy pig farm in suburban Port Coquitlam. According to police sources who came forward in 1998, Pickton bragged that he could dispose of bodies on his farm using a meat grinder. Sources claimed that women’s purses and identification were inside Pickton’s trailer. Shenher met one of the sources and thought him to be honest.

‘I became more convinced that Pickton was our man’

She learned that a year earlier, Pickton was charged with the attempted murder of a Downtown Eastside prostitute, whom he had lured to his farm. An RCMP officer who had investigated the stabbing and had recommended the attempted murder charge to Crown prosecutors believed the case was a slam dunk, an easy conviction. But the Crown stayed the charge, on the belief — not shared by the RCMP or Ms. Shenher — that Pickton’s alleged victim was too drug-dependent to make a reliable witness.

“I became more convinced that Pickton was our man,” Ms. Shenher wrote in her book.

She had a potential ally inside the VPD: Kim Rossmo, a geographic profiler with a doctorate in criminology. He believed one or more serial killers were preying on Downtown Eastside prostitutes and he shared his perspective with Ms. Shenher.

Mr. Rossmo was not well-liked by certain colleagues, who thought him an inexperienced flake and unworthy of the unique title he had been given, detective inspector. Ms. Shenher had similar opinions. “His own arrogance and insecurity are his greatest faults,” Ms. Shenher wrote. “Rossmo told me he felt the offender or offenders had the ability to dispose of bodies in privacy, was likely Caucasian and probably used a vehicle, all things I had surmised on my own without the use of any computer program.”

Of course, the description fit Robert Pickton. If Ms. Shenher had already drawn similar conclusions, and was convinced he was the perpetrator, then why was Pickton not apprehended in 1998? How could Ms. Shenher have failed, knowing all that she did? In her manuscript, she blames the old boys, the apathetic men in charge.

“[The missing women] were dead, we had a strong suspect and, still, VPD management put their collective hands over their ears, loudly sang la-la-la and pretended we didn’t have a responsibility to find these women,” she wrote, in another passage read aloud at the inquiry by Mr. Ward, the lawyer.

She could have pressed harder, she admits. “I, too, should have complained long and loud about the lack of resources to properly investigate these files and I really didn’t.”

By 1999, she had decided it came down to this: Rock the boat and watch her career go up in flames or go with the flow and keep climbing the VPD ladder. She chose the latter course. “The best I could hope to do was try my best for these women and cover my own ass,” she wrote.

_________________________________

BCTV NEWSRobert William Pickton

Mr. Rossmo’s VPD contract expired in 2000. He filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit that ended up before the courts. This “became an embarrassing display of VPD upper management accusing each other of lying on the [witness] stand, like a bunch of school boys in a playing field arguing over a goal,” wrote Ms. Shenher.

She portrayed her immediate boss, a VPD sergeant named Geramy Field, as a well-intentioned yet powerless, even befuddled, cop. Ms. Shenher wrote that at one point, it seemed as if “we had changed roles and I was now the supervisor, guiding and advising her as to the right thing to do. She appeared lost and pleaded with me to tell her what she should do.”

In May 1999, with more women disappearing from the Downtown Eastside, a formal missing person review team (MPRT) was established and additional resources and VPD officers were put to work. Initially, Ms. Shenher was thrilled. Then she compared her resources to the Home Invasion Task Force which was set up next door. “New detectives dreamed of being asked to join the Home Invasion Task Force,” she wrote, “while those same people avoided the MPRT like the plague, uninterested in searching for a bunch of missing ‘whores’…. Apparently, victimized homeowners warranted the big guns; missing, drug-addicted hookers did not.”

Her assessment of two VPD officers assigned to her team is scathing. Detective Constables Doug Fell and Mark Wolthers are depicted as renegades whom nobody liked. “Not only did they have even less experience dealing with major files than I had, they brought with them a dubious reputation, both on the street and among their fellow officers,” she wrote.

The pair annoyed Ms. Shenher from the start. She was especially upset by the close attention they paid to a previously convicted sex offender and drifter named Barry Niedermeyer, whom she did not believe had any connection to Vancouver’s missing women. But arrangements were made with RCMP in Alberta to put Niedermeyer under surveillance. Ms. Shenher was miffed.

“Fell and Wolthers strutted and preened as the surveillance was going on, basking in the glow of their perceived new importance as the detectives overseeing this large undercover operation that was the collection of [Niedermeyer’s] DNA,” she wrote sarcastically. “[Another VPD officer] and I were so annoyed, we took to snorting like pigs in the office — our way of staying sane in such a manic environment and of saying they were pursuing the wrong man and that we believed Pickton was a far more worthy suspect.”

‘We believed Pickton was a far more worthy suspect’

Niedermeyer was eventually charged with more sex offences and was convicted and imprisoned, thanks to the work of Messrs.. Fell and Wolthers. Yet Ms. Shenher slams them in her book, giving them no credit at all.

In testimony this month at the inquiry, Messrs. Fell and Wolthers claimed that information about Pickton was kept from them while they worked under Ms. Shenher. Other officers have denied the allegation. Mr. Wolthers also said the pair was unfairly criticized in the VPD’s official missing women investigation review, written by Deputy Chief Constable Doug LePard and entered as evidence early on in the inquiry. Mr. Wolthers called the deputy chief’s findings “disgusting.”

Both officers were removed from the review team in 2000. Mr. Wolthers, now retired, does not believe the VPD ever completed its job, even after Pickton was arrested. “I believe strongly that there’s two to three serial killers,” he told the inquiry. “I don’t believe that Robert Pickton is responsible for all of ‘em.’”

Ms. Shenher turned to clairvoyants and psychics to help her crack the missing women cases. She “didn’t exactly broadcast it around the office,” she wrote. One psychic seemed to have a gift, but nothing useful materialized.

By the summer of 2000, the number of names on the VPD’s missing women list had surpassed 30. Ms. Shenher and other officers were told the review team was winding down, that the RCMP was going to review the entire investigation and basically assume the missing women files. The Mounties took review team documents to their offices in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb; some have not been seen since, according to frustrated inquiry lawyers.

The RCMP had already been conducting an on-again, off-again investigation into Robert Pickton and had shared the same graphic tip information with the VPD. The farm that Pickton shared with his younger brother David was in the RCMP’s jurisdiction; it was just a few kilometres from the RCMP’s Port Coquitlam detachment, in fact.

The Mounties were also aware of Piggy’s Palace, a booze can the brothers owned and operated; it sat across the street from their farm. It was widely understood to be frequented by Hells Angels members and associates. The RCMP had great interest in such characters and had various biker investigations underway.

Then there was Bev “Puff” Hyacinthe, a civilian who worked inside the RCMP’s Port Coquitlam detachment. She was a Pickton family friend and neighbour, the inquiry has heard. She allegedly attended a New Year’s Eve party at Piggy’s Palace in 1999 and saw Robert Pickton cavorting with a woman later identified as missing. Remarkably, Ms. Hyacinthe was also aware that Robert Pickton had learned he was under RCMP surveillance, the inquiry has heard. (Inquiry lawyers wanted Ms. Hyacinthe to testify; David Pickton, too. Commissioner Oppal refused their requests, without offering any explanation.)

‘It became obvious the VPD was looking for an opportunity to dump this case’

Like others, Ms. Shenher thought the Mounties’ on-again, off-again interest in Pickton was odd. Why, she wondered, had they suddenly offered to review Vancouver’s missing women investigations? “It became obvious the VPD was looking for an opportunity to dump this case,” she wrote. Perhaps the RCMP felt they needed to show “acceptance for some of the responsibility for the file.” The truth may be far more complicated.

Pickton kept on killing. Lori Shenher became fed up with the review team, and left in November 2000. This was “sooner than planned,” she wrote, explaining that “a murder took place in my own family and the only place I felt I should be was with my partner.” She and her same-sex partner had a baby boy early the next year. Ms. Shenher took maternity leave. When she returned to work, she joined the VPD’s Diversity Relations Unit.

But the missing women investigation gnawed at her conscience. The following summer, Ms. Shenher met with a Vancouver Sun reporter, Lindsay Kines, and she unloaded. “I told him of the set-up of the MPRT, of the shell game that was the VPD’s response to these women’s disappearances, of the incompetent people we were forced to work with,” she wrote in her manuscript. “I placed him in an awful position, knowing he wouldn’t be able to use any of it, but feeling someone needed to know this — the public needed to know this.”

She also discussed details with television producer Chris Haddock, the creator of the CBC drama da Vinci’s Inquest, which was shot in Vancouver. Ms. Shenher had been a journalist before joining the VPD and she often worked as an advisor for Mr. Haddock on his hit series. She couldn’t resist sharing with him her “frustration with the lack of progress on the Pickton file.”

The RCMP had all kinds of information on Pickton: The 1997 knife attack on a Downtown Eastside prostitute. Reports from various sources in 1998 and 1999, about women’s clothing and firearms on his farm. About Pickton talking about his ability to dispose of corpses. A witness account, about Pickton purportedly skinning a female corpse in his barn. Bev Hyacinthe’s alleged knowledge of Pickton. And yet senior RCMP officers claim they lacked information to obtain a warrant to search the Pickton farm.

But in February 2002, a young RCMP corporal applied to the courts for permission to enter the property. His search warrant application was based on the suspicion that Pickton possessed an illegal handgun. Once on the farm, more macabre discoveries were made: Items that had belonged to missing women. The farm became a massive crime scene investigation and Pickton was soon arrested.

Ms. Shenher was invited to witness RCMP investigators interview Pickton at their Surrey detachment. She was told that Pickton “had masturbated almost immediately upon entering the cell the previous night and, to the horror of his poor cellmate, would do so several times throughout the night.” Pickton would give the RCMP a confession, of sorts, hinting that he might have killed as many as 49 women. By then, his fate was practically sealed. He was eventually charged with 26 counts of first degree murder and was convicted by a jury on six counts of second degree murder. But his trial was not held until 2007.

‘… nothing in policing appealed to me’

Ms. Shenher felt no satisfaction after his arrest. The RCMP had taken most of the credit for nabbing Pickton. VPD investigators were cast as failures. Truth was they had failed. Ms. Shenher wrote that she had come “to a startling and sobering realization — nothing in policing appealed to me.” She was done. Or so she thought.

She went on medical leave in mid-2002 and began working on her manuscript. It was a cathartic exercise, she told the inquiry and, clearly, she felt she had some scores to settle. She and her partner had another baby. Ms. Shenher went on a long maternity leave in February 2003. She hired a literary agent, signed a book deal with McClelland & Stewart, and began delivering chapters. She wrote 289 pages.

Inevitably, reporters caught wind of her book project. Families of Pickton’s victims were outraged. The VPD claimed Ms. Shenher was not writing a book. But she was, and was still collecting a VPD paycheque. She had been part of the Pickton investigation, and she had filled her manuscript with details about evidence. Yet Pickton hadn’t even been tried. There was confusion.

So the book disappeared.

It “just died a death,” Ms. Shenher testified last month, when inquiry lawyers quizzed her on it. “The VPD really had no knowledge that I had written it…. They had nothing to do with the decisions around it at all.” The VPD had not ordered her to kill it. “I wasn’t in any way pressured by them.”

On the other hand, she told lawyer Cameron Ward, “I stand by most of what I wrote, for the most part. There are a couple of things that I have come to, you know, in the fullness of time, have come to understand a little bit differently, or I have had more information provided to me, which has changed my view. But I think the overall tenor of the book I would stand by.”

Ms. Shenher returned to the VPD in 2004. She is now a Detective Constable with the Emergency and Operations Planning Section. Reached at her work late this week, she declined to discuss her book. “I still have to work here,” she said. “I do intend to rewrite it as a memoir one day.”

Chances are you’ve never heard of Uwe Boll. He’s described by some critics as one of the world’s worst film directors. He churns out blood-soaked slasher pictures, reality-based violence for hard-core gore enthusiasts. His latest efforts include The Profane Exhibit, in which he directs a segment about a notorious case of incest and imprisonment.

And there’s The Bailout, now being filmed in Vancouver. It’s about an investor who loses his wealth during the 2008 economic meltdown and goes on a vengeful serial murder spree, killing stockbrokers, bankers and the like.

“We want that the real investment bankers feel scared,” Mr. Boll told Rue Morgue magazine. “They see this movie and they say, ‘Shit, maybe some client now will do to us what that guy’s doing in the movie.'”

Too creepy for some. “Perhaps predictably, many of the actors [Mr. Boll] approached were put off by the idea that he’s actually depicting bankers being killed,” notes Rue Morgue.

Not Wally Oppal. A former B.C. judge and provincial cabinet minister — and a friend of the film’s producer — he agreed to a bit role in The Bailout, playing one of the murdered brokers. The Oppal segment was shot on a Sunday morning in late April. Mr Oppal says he enjoyed the experience and found it eye-opening. He did a friend a favour. So what?

This isn’t simply a case of bad taste. Mr. Oppal showed an appalling lapse in judgment, taking on this project. He is, after all, the provincially-appointed commissioner of the Missing Women Inquiry, which is supposed to be examining how police failed to apprehend Robert “Willie” Pickton, the serial killer. Chances are you’ve heard of him.

Mr. Oppal was appointed to examine how a loathsome serial killer avoided police detection and got away with murdering women. It is serious business. In the middle of it, Mr. Oppal chose to act in a B-grade flick about a serial killer. He played a murder victim. What was he thinking?

For an eminent jurist, Mr. Oppal can be remarkably insensitive. In 1992, when he was a B.C. Supreme Court justice, he appeared at a boozy, men-only dinner hosted by members of the Vancouver Police Department, an annual fund-raiser called the Gentlemen’s Regimental Dinner. He cracked wise about an alleged rape victim, a woman who had come before him at trial.

“In my business, one of the great benefits is that we get to listen to a lot of great cross-examinations,” Mr. Oppal told his audience. “You get a lot of seedy and scintillating material. I want to give you a sample…”

Mr. Oppal then described, in great detail and to much laughter, what the alleged rape victim said she had experienced. The event was tape recorded and was later recounted in the pages of Saturday Night magazine, which also published a reaction from then-VPD chief Bill Marshall, who had attended the dinner. “That was a really difficult night for me,” the chief said. “I’m trying to deal with those attitudes, but I need time. We just can’t have that kind of stuff any more.”

Mr. Oppal defended his performance, claiming he had been trying to make a point about sexual assault and cross examination. That didn’t pass muster, so he apologized, through a spokesman.

The incident was long forgotten by 2010, when Mr. Oppal was picked to lead the Missing Women commission. His appointment was controversial for other reasons; he had been B.C.’s attorney general after Pickton’s arrest in 2002, and had shrugged off calls for an inquiry to examine the failed police investigations.

Out of office, he took the commissioner job. Hearings began in October. Families of missing and murdered women have claimed that Mr. Oppal’s mandate is too narrow, that the entire process has been stage-managed and is heading to a predetermined conclusion. The inquiry has faced other difficulties, and now there is an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment.

Mr. Oppal took appropriate steps to address that issue; he seemed to have learned from past experiences. But his latest performance suggests his critics were correct from the beginning: He is the wrong person to lead the missing women inquiry.

VANCOUVER — Wally Oppal, lead commissioner at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry — which is investigating the circumstances surrounding serial-killer Robert Pickton’s murder of vulnerable women from the Downtown Eastside — has taken a role as a gunshot victim in a film about a serial killer.

But the former B.C. Attorney General is unapologetic about his involvement in a movie about a man hunting down and killing victims — at a time when the commission has undergone administrative upheaval and has been accused of paying inadequate attention to the voices of poor and aboriginal women in the Downtown Eastside.

“I don’t see anything inappropriate about it,” Oppal said Thursday, before appearing at a policy forum on vulnerable and intimidated witnesses at the downtown Vancouver Public Library branch.

“Listen, nobody has been more passionate about what has gone on here (at the Inquiry) than me,” he said. “So on a Sunday morning between 9 and 1, I go and do a bit part in this movie on my own time. And there is certainly no intent to show any disrespect to anything here. And the balance of the day I go work on what we are doing.

Related

“So absolutely I make no apologies for that,” Oppal added. “I am entitled to have a life. I am working day and night on this and there is hardly a day I don’t go into the office.”

However, family members of some of Pickton’s victims expressed surprise over his choice to participate in the film.

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn Crey was murdered by Pickton, is one of the few family members who remains supportive, although often critical, of Oppal in his role as the inquiry’s commissioner.

‘While he does have a right to a private life, he should have taken a pass on his debut as a film star’

But Crey said Thursday he is “surprised Mr. Oppal would take part in a movie shot while labouring under a tight deadline to complete his work as the head of the Missing Women’s Inquiry.

“While he does have a right to a private life, he should have taken a pass on his debut as a film star,” said Crey, who took the stand as a witness for more than two days at the start of the inquiry’s formal hearings.

The film, titled The Bailout, is a fictional tale of a man who lost everything in the 2008 crash and is exacting revenge by systematically killing investment bankers. It’s the creation of director Uwe Boll, perhaps best known for work on campy films like Postal, BloodRayne and House of the Dead.

Oppal has a cameo as one of the marked-for-death stockbrokers, alongside developer Bruce Langereis.

This week, pictures of the pair cropped up showing Oppal costumed in a bloodied dress shirt.

He said that he was invited to do the bit part as an extra because “a friend of mine is the producer.”

Scenes were shot on location in Vancouver last week.

B.C. Civil Liberties Association president Robert Holmes said although Oppal had a long record of public service and his integrity wasn’t in question, his choice to participate was bad optics.

“I don’t think anyone can question his integrity and at this point if he wants to go off and be a movie actor that’s his choice,” he said.

“The problem is, the optics of this right now are problematic because the public I think . . . has at the very least assumed that this inquiry is being dealt with on a full-time basis.”

‘The problem is, the optics of this right now are problematic’

As for the subject matter of the film, Holmes said, “it is fiction. but at the same time, I think it doesn’t show the sensitivity that is required in that position. I think frankly, it adds to the perception that the Missing Women’s Inquiry has not been handled in as deft a manner as it should have been.”

Oppal shot back that if the BCCLA “spent less time complaining about what I did on a Sunday and more taking part in this inquiry, it might be more fruitful.”

The Inquiry is set to wrap up on June 30.

Postmedia News

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/03/wally-oppal-movie/feed/0std“I am entitled to have a life," Wally Oppal said Thursday. "I am working day and night on this and there is hardly a day I don’t go into the office.”Brian Hutchinson: Vancouver Police prejudices ensured missing skid-row prostitutes were a low priorityhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/24/brian-hutchinson-vancouver-police-prejudices-ensured-missing-skid-row-prostitutes-were-a-low-priority/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/24/brian-hutchinson-vancouver-police-prejudices-ensured-missing-skid-row-prostitutes-were-a-low-priority/#commentsTue, 24 Apr 2012 23:22:51 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=76010

The first roadblock was allegedly thrown up by a Vancouver Police Department clerk, Sandy Cameron. From 1979 to 2001 — an awful period marked by Robert Pickton’s serial murder spree —Ms. Cameron was assigned to the VPD’s missing persons unit. She was supposed to handle calls and complaints, and direct new cases to police officers.

Ms. Cameron was the wrong person for the job. Sometimes, she was dismissive when people called. Plain rude. Sometimes, she berated concerned relatives, the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry has heard, and she seemed not to take all reports seriously.

According to Ms. Cameron, who testified at the inquiry this week, she encountered some roadblocks herself: a lack of police resources assigned to missing person files, something she had flagged in the early 1990s; poor case management; sexist attitudes within the VPD. She claims she was once harassed by a drunken staff-sergeant after hours.

The inquiry is supposed to examine how police investigated the disappearance of dozens of sex-trade workers between 1997 to 2002, the year of Pickton’s arrest. He was eventually charged with killing 26 women and in 2007 was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder. The remaining charges were stayed.

“I have been vilified,” she said in cross-examination Tuesday. “I have been the target. People have been allowed to say everything and anything about me, without documentation to back it up.”

She has been made a scapegoat in this sad and sordid affair.

According to an internal VPD review of its missing women investigations, prepared well before the public inquiry was formed, Ms. Cameron “was accused by some family members of the missing women of being racist, of ignoring complaints from the families of sex-trade workers, and of misrepresenting herself as a police officer … Every police officer interviewed for this review who had worked with [Ms. Cameron] in the Missing Persons Unit from 1995 until she left in late 2001 gave statements that corroborated some or all of these complaints.”

Postmedia News files<em>Below, the full text of Melissa Styles' eulogy for her husband, Const. Garrett Styles</em>
Garrett, you are my first and only love. From the first time we went out, I knew we had something special beginning. You didn't always know what to say, and didn't try with empty words.
A hand squeezed or a hug let me know that you were there for me and I was loved. You always knew what to say to make me laugh when I needed it.
The greatest gift you ever gave me was our two beautiful children. Thank you so much for making me a mother and giving me something to hold on to now that you are gone. They will be reminded every day how much you loved them. You will be their first thought in the morning and their last thought at night; you always were and continue to be for me.
<!--more-->You were one of the lucky ones who got to be what they dreamed of when they were growing up, a police officer. I know sometimes you became frustrated, but it was only because you cared so much about what you did. You did what you did well.
I was proud of you every day and I hope I told you that enough. I know you wouldn't have wanted all this fuss, you never liked the limelight.
I did this because you've honoured so many of your fallen brothers and sisters and I felt that you deserved the same. We always told each other 'I love you to bits and pieces' and that has never been more true. Right now, I am in pieces. But I will put myself back together for our children because I know that was what you would want me to do. I'm not sure how I will live in a world without you, but I promise that I will find a way. I love you. You were so loved.
<em>National Post</em>
[np-related]

Written by VPD deputy chief Doug LePard, the review says that in some instances, Ms. Cameron’s behaviour was “inappropriate and prejudicial.” But, it goes on, “the allegations do not sustain an inference of systemic bias throughout the VPD organization.”

Considered on their own, perhaps they do not. But evidence already put before inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal demonstrates that the VPD was rife with prejudice, and that missing skid-row prostitutes were a low police priority. Such conditions allowed Pickton to snatch from Vancouver’s ugly Downtown Eastside dozens of sex-trade workers — many of them aboriginal — for years.

Consider the testimony this week from another civilian VPD worker, Rae-Lynn Dicks. The former 911 call operator told the inquiry that one police sergeant said of a missing woman: “Who cares? It’s just another hooker.” Ms. Dicks recalled a different VPD officer referring to sex workers as “the scum of the earth … We’re not going to waste valuable time looking for them.”

And she described when a prostitute called 911 to report an attack.

“She gave me a partial [licence] plate number and she was sounding weaker and weaker and passed out. I heard her fall,” said Ms. Dicks.

A VPD officer disregarded the complaint, she claimed.

“It’s just a hooker,” he allegedly said. “Hookers can’t be raped.”

The woman had been sexually assaulted with a tennis racquet.

“Hooker” was used inside VPD headquarters all the time, recalled Ms. Cameron.

“The word was flying left, right and centre around the building,” she testified Tuesday.

She used it herself in an email, she admitted. That she apologized for using the word, in the same email, means she knew at the time it was wrong.

The VPD is still an “old boys’ club,” noted Ms. Dicks, although police have learned to not denigrate and dismiss the most desperate members of society, even with pejorative words. But here’s a terrible irony: Some commission of inquiry staff have allegedly made sexist comments and belittled prostitutes behind closed doors.

“You should spend less time working behind your desk, and a lot more time working on your ass,” one senior employee is alleged to have said to a female colleague.

The allegations came to light last month. They may not “sustain an inference of systemic bias,” to steal a phrase from the VPD, but Mr. Oppal felt them serious enough to order an internal investigation, and the commission’s executive director has been placed on paid leave. Had the VPD taken similar steps back in the day ­— had anyone cared to dismantle the roadblocks — we might not be having the present discussion at all.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/24/brian-hutchinson-vancouver-police-prejudices-ensured-missing-skid-row-prostitutes-were-a-low-priority/feed/0stdCivilian VPD worker, Rae-Lynn Dicks, testified at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry this week. The former 911 call operator told the inquiry that one police sergeant said of a missing woman: “Who cares? It’s just another hooker.” Ms. Dicks recalled a different VPD officer referring to sex workers as “the scum of the earth ... We’re not going to waste valuable time looking for them.”MLA Jenny Kwan (right) hugs Lorelei Williams (left), after a press conference in Vancouver last month asking for the government to extend the Missing Women's Inquiry. Williams lost her cousin Tanya Holyk. Robert Pickton victims, Dianne Rock (left) and Cara Ellis (right) are shown in the framed photographs. Investigator to probe sexism claims by former Missing Women inquiry staffhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/04/investigator-to-probe-sexism-claims-by-former-missing-women-inquiry-staff/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/04/investigator-to-probe-sexism-claims-by-former-missing-women-inquiry-staff/#commentsWed, 04 Apr 2012 18:15:32 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=158579

By Neal Hall

VANCOUVER — The head of the Missing Women inquiry announced Wednesday he has appointed an independent investigator to probe workplace harassment allegations made by former inquiry staff.

“I am outraged by these anonymous allegations and I take them very seriously,” Wally Oppal said in a statement issued Wednesday morning.

Oppal said commission counsel Art Vertlieb was shocked by the accusations and made Oppal aware of the matter after he was interviewed by Hutchinson last Friday.

“Neither I, nor senior counsel had any knowledge of this kind of behaviour at the Commission,” Oppal said.

“There have been no formal complaints made and no former employees have come forward with allegations,” he said.

Had anyone come to me or to senior counsel … the person responsible would have been dealt with accordingly

“Had anyone come to me or to senior counsel, we would have immediately launched an investigation and the person responsible would have been dealt with accordingly,” Oppal said.

“Upon learning of these allegations, we engaged the services of an experienced independent investigator [Delayne Sartison, Q.C.] to look into the allegations.”

Oppal made the announcement before the inquiry began at 9:30 a.m. There was no advance notice to the media that Oppal planned to make the announcement.

The Missing Women inquiry, which began last Oct. 11, is probing why it took so long to catch serial killer Robert (Willie) Pickton, who is believed to have killed more than four dozen women before he was arrested in 2002.

The inquiry has heard how police did not properly investigate the women disappearing from the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Police refused to believe at the time that a serial killer was preying on women.